
"CITIZENS! THERE IS NOT A MOMENT TO 
BE LOST; ^ ^ ^ TO ARMS! CITIZENS, TO 
ARMS ! * * * THE COUNTRY IS IN DANGER." 

— Camille Desmoulins, July 14, 1789. 



■RcptlntcJ) from tbc Iflret EOftion ot 1899 



^be Sbetvpoob press. 



1902, 




<N» ^ #'#'»#*^S»#*i#>^SX^i^#^^^#i^^i^^^^^^ 





loijit f\. Sleeper. 



•CITIZENS! THERE IS NOT A MOMENT TO 
BE LOST; ,, .^ .^ TO ARMS! CITIZENS, T 
ARMS! .^ ,, ,, THE COUNTRY IS IN DANCE 

— C'ajiii.i.k Dksm(ui.ins, .Tn.Y 14. IT 




IReprinteCi from tbe ffirst B^ition of XSqq, 

Zhc Sbetwoob Ipuess, 

1902. 



.7«^***ir*#*>**>ff*^^«F^»*<,»*^^^*^*^^spc?vrc^\. 




^ 



Xlo Jibe 
MortbB IPresfOents 



;0ut| ffrican %qMk 



and ^be 



§u\\f fm Itaft; 



BnO Co .^y 

Zbe JBtave atiD jfaitbful /II!>cn 
IWlboec IHoblc Jfatbers ffougbt jfor Zbe TRigbts ®f /Ifcan 

1Fn Gape GoloriB, 1ln 1815, 

an& "Wabo Ibave Coneistentlg 2)ctenCic& Zbosc Just "Rfgbts; 

Ever Since Cbat /IRcmorable tlprtsing. 



" 't is a rough land of eakth, and stone, and teee, 

Wheee breathes no casti.ed lord or cabin'd slave, 
Where thoughts and tongues and hands are bold and free, 

And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave ; 
And where none kneel, save when tc heaven they pray, 

"Not even then, unless in their own way." 

— Halleck, 



CONSISTENCY ! 

"To goto war with Pres. Kruger to enforce 
upon him reforms, — that would be immoral" 

Chamberlain, May 8th, 1899. 

DEPRECATISG war on the S. a. REIM BLIO. 

" Great Britain must remain the para- 
mount power in 5outh Africa. " 

Cuajiheri.aix, Oct. inxii, 1899. 

Al)VOfATl>t; WAll US illE S. a. REPDBLIO. 
P. 

C of St, 



15Ap'03 



Ipublisbet's Botice. 



rr^ iie surprising success of the " Epics of South 
Africa, " ( as the New York " World " has 
been pleased to denominale Mr. Sleeper's excel- 
lent poems : " Cronje's Glory, " and the " ^Marion 
of the Free State ; " over nine thousaiul copies of 
each of which have been sold in a short time ; 
has induced us to publish a second edition of the 
first of hia Afrikander pieces : "The Tocsin. " 

This originally appeare<l in 1^99, as an unpre- 
tentious-looking pamphlet, issued and circulated 
at his own expense. 

We publish the new edition uniform in size 
and style, for binding, with tlie two other works 
we have mentioned, and subject to the same stip- 
ulations made by the author in lieu of royalty, 
viz : 

100 copies of an Edition de T>uxe, and 
.tOO copies of the ordinarv issue, 
to be distril)uted, freef)f charge, t(j un]iortaiit li- 
braries and unions ; all the balance to be placed 
on sale. 



Ordinary Edition — 10,000 Copies. 



IPtefatot^ IRemarks. 

"T tis 1388 and the scc-nc is Glaris ; (4Iariswith 
its we.altli of ylDoiiiy raviiU' ami snow y alpine 
lieight, the vast rock-fortress reared hy Nature on 
Helvetian soil. To the frontiers rush its shep- 

herd-i)eople, few in numbers, ])ooi-ly attii-ed, aid- 
ed only hy the men of Sehwyz ; hut manv and 
mighty in their naked selves because animated by 
a quenchless love of Liberty and sujiporled bv 
the invisilile but j)otent aid given by resistless 
Truth unto a righteous cause. An Austrian 

army lias gathered there ; twenty to <ine, its pan- 
oplied array confronts those peasant-heroes, — 
meeting liaughtily their mild plea for ])eace with 
conditions so debasing and so harsh that no fn-e 
man's spirit could bend without l)reaking beneath 
their pitiless weight. Does the oppressoi-, men- 
acing life and lan<l an<l liberty without a shadow 
of justice to authorise his actions, jirosper ? No! 
At the foot of loft)', snow-clad Ruli, his .-irmy is 
shattered — its flower lies slain ; and llic schemes 
of heartless ambition are forever <lestrovcd. 



It is 1809, and to tlie north and west of rnix- 
ged Natal gather tlic nuclei of future mighty ar- 
mies. Tyranny and Greed liave marshalled 
the mercenaries of one of the world's richest and 
most j)uissant sovereigns, to hurl them, with all 
the miseries and horrors of war, upon a simple, 
unoflfending, pastoral people who, lying in the 
])ath of British empire and irJiabiting regions per- 
haj)s second to none in mineral treasure, have a- 
wakened some of the vilest and most dangerous 
of the passions dominating human actions. 

Strong in their love of liberty, though weak 
in embattled numbers, these devoted people, free- 
men of the South African Republic, — allied only 
with their Free State brethren, — haste to front 
Op[)ression's frown within its usurped realms, and 
there oppose their patriot breasts to bar the threat- 
ened ruin to their toil-won FATHERt.AND. 
*** «** *** 

lias History reverted ? — Are we living in the 

shadow of a veritably impending Twentieth Cen- 
tury ? — Have five hundred years rolled by, aTid a 
so-called era of ])rogress still permits as shocking 
an exhibition of unbridled arrogance, of subver- 
sive tyranny, of insuperable injustice; as the l>ai- 
l)arons " ignorance " of the decried Midtlle Ages 
ever belield with callous or indifferent apathy ? 



Aro WQ morally, as wc'l\ as industrially, advan- 
ciniif ■;' It is doubtful — very doubtful. The 

self-same soothing or tumultuous passions rule in 
the Tninds of modern men as those that swayed 
the Egyptian, the Assyrian, nay primeval, races; 
for better or for worse, by their impulsive or cap- 
ricious dictates. True, universal, TCducation 
can alone instruct us how to control these, and 
felicitously direct their proper application. 

B\it, unfortunately, we are not rightly educa- 
ted ; nor does any immediate or early prospect of 
our being so, Hatter us with promise. 

Reflect upon the almost world-wide system 
that vitiatingly prevails ! We are taught to 

reverence what should long ago have become an 
obsolete mythology, abounding — as it does — with 
preposterous marvels, pernicious superstition, and 
vulgar and revolting incidents, that disgust and 
repel intelligent searchers after Truth, in desjnte 
of a leavening of exalted moral a.viom ; we are 
daily instigated by unchecked desires or by more 
seductive example, to stifle much of the regard 
we should feel towards our fellow man — to mulct 
liini )>y the shrew<l and sanctioned trickery of 
trade ; to deceive liim by disingenuous represen- 
tations ; and to remove him by falsehood, con- 
spiracy, or even force, fi-oni an advantageous po- 



sition he may occupy, that we or ours may become 
lustalkd into it in his stead ; — and all this for the 
acquirement of Fame — Position — Whai.th! mir- 
rored to our credulous vision as tlie chief aims and 
ends ef earthly effort. 

We are not tauglit implicit obedience to those 
inflexible mandates of Nature entitled the laws 
of health, in default of which there can exist nei- 
ther sound physical, nor perfect mental, organiza- 
tion ; we are not monitored into conscientious con- 
sideration for the rights and well-being of our fel- 
low men, no matter what tlieir religion, race, or 
rank, without which and the judicious display of 
self-sacrifice on occasion, there can be no real or 
lasting happiness ; and justice, charity, and hones- 
ty cease to be. Far from it, we are urged to 
lose all eight of these vital requisites in the mad 
strife for that, which when realized, is but as the 
gathered manchineel in its tempting outer attrac- 
tiveness and real inner deadliness and' disappoint- 
ing worthlessness. 

As with individuals, so. with society to a great- 
er or less extent. Individuals f oiin and modi- 
fy society, society forms and modifies those who 
constitute it, proportionally to the aggi-egate in- 
telligence and enlightenment it possesses and the 
recei)tiveness of each member But, starting 



■with a fundanieiitally erroneous edncation, socie- 
ty, while it may mitigate vices or errors if its 
trend is progressive; cannot be expected to whol- 
ly eradicate them until its own primal defect, that 
of the INDIVIDUAL, is corrected ; and if its tenden- 
cy is'not exalted in its nature, it may be looked 
to as the source of much world-wide harm. 

As with society, so with governments ; simi- 
lar imperfections, due to the same cause, deteiior- 
atethem ; we view, therefore, the latter multiply- 
ing on a large scale tlie evil qualities of the in- 
dividual. What a repulsive presentation does 
even our own government afford ! A large 
number ofagents, called dijjlomats, are employed, 
whose coveted office, for which they are carefully 
trained, is to systematically misrepresent, chicane, 
and delude, in all possible ways ; — a hireling bod- 
y, the army, is maintained in a condition akin to 
serfdom, and is drilled into unreasoning obedi- 
ence of all orders, and to yield up life or health 
in any cause, however puerile or however wrong, 
often warring on the poorer classes in support of 
the unprinci])leil and unfeeling rich ; — and a vast 
tribe flourishes among us and grasps ceaselessly 
at the higli places, creatures whose houses of 
glass Roscommon and Swift marked deeply, long 
ago, with their diamond wit ; tlu^ lawyers, who, 



(lisorneincf the spiiii-fiviliz.ilinn of which they arc 
thi' illegitimate offspring, sink all eoneeru for hon- 
esty and jtistice in the selfish realization of their 
ambitious political aims, the narrow instincts of 
financial emolnment, or a scarcely less demorali- 
zing ])romotion of a riiinons t'xtreme of commer- 
cial jirosperitv, certain to ]irove ultimately fatal 
to their conntry. 

This is the true reason for the possibility of 
of the j)erpetratioii of such an infamy as that of 
the South African "War just begun; not so much 
is it traceable to faults inherent in any partic- 
ular system of government, as to defects in the 
individuals composing them all, — defects arising 
from the siai.-eiiucatiox of the IVFax. 

Why then, the reader may enquire ; write 
this work, if mankind, for the reason you have 
just advanced, is incapable o\Anng to its mental 
blindness, of sympathizing with your object — 
na)-, perliaps of even riglitly eompreliendiiig what 
that object is ? To tliis I reply : tliat in 

every land Avhere the rudiments of education 
exist, some men may be found who can and will 
understand, and can and will exalt a worthy jmr- 
pose, aye ! even at the risk of martyrdom, when 
once the potent impulse is given to their dormant 
thotight. Their numbers mav be few, but 



their efforts unceasing' : their teachings — their 
EXAMPLE — far extending and con^dncing. 

They -will prove that the Boer of Sontli Af- 
rica has be«i most shamefnlly maligned ; most 
unjustifiably persecuted ; and that he is waging 
today, a glorious battle ; not, because of this, for 
himself alone ; but also foe the DcnxTROD- 

DEN OF THE WORLD, AGAINST THE TITAXIC FOE. 

CES OF Wealth axd Oppression. 

This is the why and the wherefore of this 
poem and its annotations; may its seed, scattered 
broadcast, chance to light upon and germinate in 
some such congenial soil. 




preface 

to 

Zbc Seconb EMtion, 

r I "^ wo .and a linlf iiiomeiitous yvava liave come 
and gonv siiifi.' tlie first edition of tliis little 
work was sent on its mission aronnd tlie world, 
and still both the English people and my own de- 
generate eonntrymen view, with criminal apatiiy, 
the touching spectacle presented by a brave — an 
lieroic — people watering the veldts and kopjes of 
Southern Africa with their priceless blood; blood 
each precious drop of wliich, outpoured for Lib- 
erty, is worth a thotisand times that fluid cours- 
ing through the veins of a Rothschihl, a Rhodes, 
a Cliamberlain, or a "royal Edward." 

Meanwhile, traitors to the prixcipi.es of 
OUR "Republic" — bond-slaves to the evil genius 
of Gain — sell to the British Government, beasts 
of burden and munitions of war ; the refu.sal to 
bai'tcr which, would at oiu'c embarrass the con- 
duction, or cause the cessation, of the war. 



A paltry excuse, — the motive for which is 
easily discernible,— is given by our anglophile 
Administration for the allowal of this traffic, viz: 
that Briton or Boer, alike, may freely avail them- 
selves of its advantages ! — the latter having nei- 
ther means to transport, nor money to buy, them ! 

So the war continues ; but, though Great 
Britain enjoys the benefits of a tacit alliance 
with our " Republic ; " though she covers the oc- 
cupied veldt with her armored trains, her twelve 
himdred blockhouses, her mobile field batteries, 
and her quaeter-milliok soldiers ; though she 
is to the Boer patriots today, what the legionar- 
ies of Caesar were to the Picts and Scots — the 
steel-fenced chivalry of Leopold to the Swiss, 
in numerical strength and military equipment ; 
yet she is little, if any, nearer to its conclusion 
by force than she was at the time when she first 
caused its beginning ; nor can she now hope to 
derive from it either prestige or profit, — the bril- 
liant success of Delaey, near Twebosoh, in the 
midst of her garrisoned and castled territory, is a- 
lone sufficient to cover her arms with enduring 
and well-deserved disgrace. 

Horrible, indeed, has been her warfare ! — she 
is making a new Acadie out of siiilering South 
Africa, by transporting neutrals and prisoners to 



clistant, guarded, islands ; ( Americans among 
these, abandoned liy our patriotic State Depart- 
ment ! ), and penning inoffensive neutrals in ne- 
glected inland prison-camps, She is warring on 
mothers and infants, — witness the appalling and 
yet j^art concealed death rate in those adtniral)le 
institutions of a " great civilized country ; " the 
reconcentratioii camps. Did Weyler, of infa- 

mous memory, do worse in Cuba ? Twelve 

hundred farms have been laid in ashes, within 
the bounds of the three hapless countries through 
which her devastating columns have swept like 
the "iufernals" of Thurreau traversed the fer- 
tile Bocage of La Vendee ; and prisoner after 
prisoner has been executed by the " resurrectionist 
of Khartoum, " often on obviously tru7nped-up 
charges,to terrorize s^'uipathizers with the Boers 
who meditate " rebellion " in Cape Colony : as in 
the melancholy instances of Commandants Lor- 
TER and Sheepkrs, and nearly forty other gallant 
murdered prisoners of war. Others have lieen 

shot for donning garments of kliaki, taken fmni 
captured Britons, when the wear ami tear of war 
or the marauding trooi)ers liad' so deplett'd tlicir 
stock of clothing as to leave them but the alter- 
native of nakedness ; and yet others, for alleged 
or proved executions of spies, (H- the sliootiug, or 



even flogging, of treacherous natives. 

And do the Boers revenge themselves on the 
numerous captives they are constantly taking ? 

No ! with a wonderful magnanimity, an un- 
paralleled huinanity, that shines respleudently a- 
mid the sickening horrors of their would-be ex- 
terminator's methods of war ; th^y spare and re- 
lease their prisoners — even such as the rigorous 
Methuen, — they are kind and self-denying in the 
attention given to their wounded enemies ; these 
men whose wdves and daughters and little chil- 
dren have died, like sheep with the rot, in the death 
camps ; and whose farms, dwellings — all — have 
been dissipated in fire and smoke before their eyes 
by perhaps the very soldiers the fortunes of war 
have placed in their power ; — and they firmly de- 
cline to resort to dynamite, or allow privateers to 
be employed against their foes. 

Our country is forever disgraced ! Alas ! 
the cause of its lamentable passivity is but too 
painfully evident. For years, England has 

been insidiously undermining our great tradition- 
ary principles by the subtile influence of her a- 
bounding wealth, and her pernicious temptings 
toward the ruinous path of empire. Invest- 

ments in our mines and industries ; interpurchase 
of the bonds of the two governments ; and inter- 



marriages of rich fiuiiilies, threaten our olden 
democracy, and tend to bind us liand and foot. 

May tliere come a time when the ^^orthy a- 
mong us break these debasing bonds and forever 
renounce the service of their master — Mammon. 

Meanwhile, Englishmen and Americans who 
carry on this war against a ulameless people, I 
cast at you all, a text, from that Bible you follow 
so faithfully as a rigid monitor in your every 
day dealings mth your fellow-men, — fraught with 
most truthful and significant meaning and menace : 

" TKIlitb wbat measure gc mete, (t sball 
be measure? unto sou again. " 




te 



V.S 



CO 



^ 



\ - 



^- •@: 



A3, 




|k ftifsin. 



tibe Gall. 
Over inountaiii and veldt the tocsin is ringing, 

From village and farm its war-notes are bringing 
'J'lie greybeard and stripling, '\\'itli eager steps sprin 

To dare and to die for their dear native land I 

Afar to the mnds its vibrant tongue swinging. 
This soul-stirring call — this alarum — is A\inging : 

" Rise ! burghers rise ! the yoke from you Hinging 
Twice fastened upon you by Tyranny's hand. 

Rise ! burghers rise ! the strife is beginning ; 

Loosen the fond arms about your necks clinging 
Haste to the front, your battle hymn singing, 

For Home ami for Liberty take your last stand 

IHarratlve. 
Hark ! what is that sound breaking loud on my ear? 

Portentous with terror and horror and shame. 
Ah ! what are yon forms that all warlike appear, 

Engarbed in gay colors aglow like a ilame ? 

'Tis the rumble and jar of the engines of War 

In the land of the heath and the kameel-dorn tree ; 

' Tis the trample of feet where feet ne'er trod before 
Sa\e the swift karossed Kaffir's, once curbless ai 




^^^ 









' MMis (if the "first of all civilized lands, " 
Hasten on to efface with Ruin's dread flame 
At a " jjeace-lo^-ing " queen's most "christian " commands 
From South Africa's soil all Republioax XA>rE ! 

iSedecked v.-ith the trappings of barbaric pride — 
Aflush with the prestige of past glories won — 

They clamor to meet ^\•ith a foe they deride, 
And hurry to death liy false visions led oil 

For the day-dreams of riches that glamor their sight ; 

And the witcli-rays of Glory endazzling their path ; 
As, soulless and thouglitless, they rush to the ti<i:l)t, 

On a foenian of uiettle to shower their wrath. 

Shall evanish away from the red-coated slaves 

Like the brief after-gleamings that dart from the sun — 

I-ike the wake of the vessel enwhiteniiig the waves — 
And Despair overmantle the task they've begun. 

jVnd foi- A^'hat ? For Avhat crime are these English wol 
To anguish the innocent — slaughter the brave — 

To harr}' and ravage the farm and tlie fold — 

And east Youth and Age to the maw of the grave ? 

For the crime that has perilled, in all ages past, 
All tribes ainl all nations both little and great ; 
le rejiuted possession of treasure more vast 
Than his who coveted the Parthian State. 



told 



"lut think not tliat alone tiie rich 'Watersrand 
Has sighted the cannon and sharpened the steel, 

\iul freighted tlie transports to Africa's strand — 
]>iitish ears by mere gold are not closed to appeal. 



^, 






0^ 



vx 



c8 









^^ 



r^i 








m 



® 






%. 



lint by causes as potent ; the hatred of race ! 

The greed for dominion ! the hist of Ambition ! 
Three vices that millions of mankind disgrace, 

And demean and o'erthrow whate'er their condition. 

The States of South Afric' have dared to defy 

A monarchy's might fe\v of yore have withstood ; 
Which, abhorring republics, their rights would deny 

To GOVERN THEMSELVES AS A FREE PEOPLE SIIOIII.I) ! 
* * * * * * * * * * * * « * * 

To the narrative listen, that I shall relate ; 
Of Albion's actions of conscienceless wrong, 
"Which sternly precluding defence or debate 
A-^oice the tyranny shown to the weak by the stkoncj. 

Five score and live years ago, the Dutch at Cape To«ii ; 

A few thousand farmers spread 'round Table Bay ; 
Renounced the weak prince who had weighted them down 

With the despotic might that such rulers display. 

A spark from the beacon that lighted up France, 

And the tinsel of royalty scorched as it blazed. 
Wafted o'er to the Cape ; from a long-lasting trance 

Its people awakening, free standards upraised. 
They formed a republic — Ah ! brief it endured, 

For Orange appealed to the all-grasping isle. 
And speedily ample assistance secured ; 

For aid is oft speedy when made worth the \\hile. 

The isle that has reached out afar o'er the sea. 
And seized on the fairest of Earth as her spoil. 

To root, branch, and re-root, like the huge banian tree, 
"SVith avidity caught at this fresh fertile soil. 



X 




v3v:j. 




AimI liow (lid slic rule the laTid slu^ tlius st'i/.iMl ■;" 
Witli kind and (•(iiisiilcrnti- caie for its weal V 

Tntil the fresh ^yonnds of its people ajfjteased 

Soothed 1)V Love's magic balm seemed becnmiiiiy to lieal V 

As it fared with the j'outli's whose ailments came under 
The hand and the Jierbs of Cathay's learn'd princess — 

And the ])arts that the sword had stricken asunder 
Joined smoothly together with Oriloan quickness? 

Oh no ! With a high and a rigorous hand 

She I'estricted the price of the selling of grain ; 

Made English compulsory o'er the vexed land ; 

And jiolice formed of Hottentots made it maintain ! 

Placed ignorant blacks, of degenerate mind, 
In positions conferring much absolute power, 

AjkI decreed such liarsh laws protecting their kind 

As to stir up the 15oers, whom they hoped they would cower 

In Eighteer.-sixteen a rebellion was quelled, 

And five of the ringleaders crtielly hung ; 
While their wives and their friends were harshly conijielled 

To view the torments their last agonies wrung. 






\ 



"¥>, 






To the farm of Van Aadt were these martyrs conveve<l ; 

Like the gifte<l (4ironde at the seaflFold they sang : 
With cannon and muskets the red-coats, arrayed, 

Awed tlie citizens back till the last cruel pang 

Had ended the lives of those whose sole crime 

Was attempt froiii the shackles of Power to t!\ — 

Ff>ur ro])es failed in strength at the critical time, 

And four rose unharmed of those swung off to ilie ! 



m^ 










,®^'- ts 



v% 



K 






\ 



\ 



Aye ! women and children by soldiers were forced 
Two hangings of husbands and fathers to see ! 

While tears dowai the cheeks of the multitude coursed 
As they clamored the guiltless of blood should be free. 

Unvocative. 

Oh ! friends of the men "^ 

That at Slachtee's Nek died, 
Come — haste to the vengeance 
That war will provide ! 

Let thoughts of the butchery 

Ease Somerset caused, 
And followed with exile 

Ere Cruelty paused ; 

En strengthen each arm 

To stoutly oppose 
In battle's ordeal 

Such merciless foes ! 

On ! then, to victory 

Forward in the Right ! 
Stri-\ang and suffering 

'Till won is the iight. 

IHatrativc. 
Next, England, with reason, enfranchised the slave ; 

But , did Justice preside with benilicent sway ? 
No ! Scarcely three-fifths of his a^alue she gave 

In bonds good at London ; three months voyage away ! 

Shrewd men " aided " those whom necessity drove 
To dispose of these bonds for a pittance in hand, 







<B 



So fanners were ruined tliat yesterday throve 

And a medley of vagrants ran wild o'er the land. 

'Twas the finishing stroke of injustice and wrong 
That roused up a hardy ami resolute race ; 

They turned from their country, usurjjed by the strong, 
And sought in the wilds a new dwelliug-place. 

They disposed of their farms for whate'er they would bring ; 

They sold out theii- stores for a trifle at best ; 
Packed their rude, clumsy, carts with most everything 

They could save from the wreck — and set out on their quest 

Of new homes in a land that is now Natal called 
But then was a >\'ilderness, unknown, arid a part 
Of the kingdom of Dingan ; a despot installed 
By the murder of Chaka " the cruel of heart ; " 

On the Katfirland throne. One who viewed with distrust 
The spread of those Boers o'er his royal domain, 

Who, in Retief's leadership placing their trust, 
Pi-oclaimed that they purposed in peace to remain. 

The malice of England, who could not jjrevent 

The vast emigration, was bitterly shown 
In annoying the helpless who could not resent 

Tyrannical burdens full swift on them thrown. 

The powder and guns of the first Boer bands 
Were seized by the pitiless Governor's orders ; 

So these pioneers perished by enemies hands — ■ 
Or by famine — far over Cape Colony's borders. 

But the flow of the Exodus rolled grandly on, 
And stretched out afar o'er the j)romising plains 



#yi 









■y 



% 









W^:K 







3^ 






iXn 






\ 



That lay 'twixt the Yaal and the fair Caledon, 
Ei'e the fords were impeded by torrential rains. 

Then uj)on the poor exiles a fierce dusky band, 
Befeathered — bepamted — and naked for war ; 

The flower of Zululand's grim monarch's command, 

Leaped, demon-like, yelling. Ah ! then all seemed o'er ! 

For the warriors were many, the Boers were few. 
And worn ^\ath the hunger and toil of the way, 

But they laagered and swiftly the death-lire flew 

From the slopes of Vecht Kop where their f olorn hoj)e lay. 

Like the flesh-searing rain of tlie Dantean hell ; 

From a browu sea of forms dark as Trinidad's lake 
Flame-feathered with tire the assegai fell — 

Like the dash of the gnu adown Keisi's dim brake 

Was the charge of that host on the wagons and trees 
Whence the okl flintlock muskets incessantly spoke 

As each rush of the regiments onward to seize 

The white strangers fortress, they baffled and broke. 

Thus the army ]VIoselekatze chose from his nation 
Li a brief hour shrank like the cereus' bloom 

And the glare of the flames from the Boers burning station 
Illumed heapings of slain that the jackals entomb. 

Then Grahamstown lighted huge tires, o'erjoyed 

At the rumors that spread o'er the land like the smoke. 

Believing the Boers they so hated, destroyed 

In the flames of a camp whence no fugitives broke. 

Next, a treaty concluded with Dingan, the king, 

Gave the Trekkers jjossession of large tracts of land ; 



r\ 






fOr^^ 



But tlirtt crafty Zulu was secretly seeking 

To delude and destroy their poorly armed liand. 

Opportunity eanie, (as the wily one thought), 
And four score of Boers with brave Retief fell. 

At the close of a feast in an African fort — 
A tragical ending but few lived to tell ! 

Then down on the camp of the helpless ones nigh 

Swept a terrible torrent of merciless men, 
And soon to the heavens rose piercing and high, 

Screams of torment and death from that dread slaughter-pen. 

There six hundred women and children were pent 
Under guard of the few, of the very few, men 

Who remained when the ill-fated Retief went 
On the mission from which he came never again. 

These gazed on the thousands of weird painted forms 
And knew that their hour of parting drew near ; 

Yet the men showed that valor the desperate warms, 
And women fought with them, courageous from fear. 

The children, all thoughtless, with infantile glee 
Fresh powder and water to doomed parents boi-e 

While the Parcsean blade was sund'ring the wee 
And scarce-woven threads of lives nearly o'er. 

Hast'ning hither and thither, with dishevelled hair, 
The women extinguished the flames that upsprung. 

While shot after shot rang out on rhe air 

'Till their powder all sj)ent — their knell it was rung ! 

Then down on their knees, on the blood-sprinkled sod. 
Fell part of the pious and up from the dying 



0^ 





\\6 



n 






%> 



^^. 



\ 












V 



© 



^ 




All solemn anrl sad rose a hymn to their God 

While a few yet the host of the foe stood defying 

Overhead swarmed the tigers, ere, raging, they sprung ; 

Below huddled, helpless, their feminine prey ; 
While flames from the camp long crimson'd darts flung 

T'wards the gay garish light of the calm, mocking, day. 

For a moment that host at the summit appeared 

Like the white, feathered crest of some dark, rolling, wave, 

Impending on high a dread voUune upreared. 

To descend mth an impact no power could stave. 

Then do\\m from the wagons and branches there poured. 

Afire Avith fury and hatred and lust ! 
A wild-yelling, glorymg, evil-eyed horde. 

Vain rose that last pray'r to Him christians trust ! 

For the war-axes crushed the frail skull of the child 
Tossed high on the barbs of the transfixing spear, 

Ere they fell on the parent, distracted and wild 
At the throes of her infant, so cherished, so dear. 

For the assegai rent the soft breasts of the maid 

Yet shrieking from usage more dreadful than death- 
Yet pleading for mercy"; dismembered and flayed ; 
With the last labored gasp of her agonized breath. 

AVhen the fiend-work was done and the death-heaps Avere strewin: 
Where the li\ang moved hopefully round at the morn ; 

As the Northern-land lemmings ran onward to ruin 
Tlie homes and the harvest till Noi-ge seemed lorn, 




s 



k^afifC 




Thf wiiriior.s of Kosa and ZuJu and Ponda 

Alar o'er the farms and the settlements spread, 

Resolved not a Boer should survive to wander 
Where the thousands of late were by Retief led. 

But there echoed afar a stern rallying cry ; 

To Pketorius' banner sped live hundred Boers, 
Prepared on a lost field of battle to lie, 

Or rejoice in the blessings a triumph procures ! 

And onward they marched through the wild, rugged, land 
Till the impis of Dingan burst fierce o!i their sight ; 

Twehe thousand, or more, the broad war-shields expand, 
And the spear and the bullet commingle in fight ! 

Thrice set had the sun on tliat sad scene of strife, 

And the javeiin still whirred o'er the soil-soaking slain ; 
Still Christian and Kaffir fought madly for life ; 

Death biding for either who yielded that plain ! 
Oh ! vast was the power and -nade spread the sway 

At morning, of Dingan, the " Elephant King, " 
But, blasted and blighted, they withered away 

Ere Night, intervening, her baton could fling. 

For tlie ranks of his Ziugans by carnage waxed thin — 
Fell like river-reeds, sink at the sweep of the scythe : 

And the field, as if scathed by the breath of the Jinn, 
Lay blackened -with dead and with dyini.- awrithe. 






V:-, ,(V/ 



2C?^ 



V5 



^ 



2^ 



tlnvocative. 

Oh ! sons of the Trekkers ! 
Say ! Can you forget 'i 

10. 



t 



^0C 



II 


1^ ' '^ 




*''^^^rfK 


5 ^ J 


f 




~.yLJ 



■A 



■t4- 



m 



The sorrowful story 
Whose memory yet 

Enrages the just souls 

Who picture the woe 
Of those whom the British 

Forced naked to go 

To the barbarous \\-ilds, 

With those they held dear 
To perish by famine 

Or fall by tlie spear ! 

Remember those heroes 

Preferring to die 
To living in serfdom — 

Arm ! England defy ! 

IRarrativc. 

Sweet Peace, for a time, with encouraging smile. 

Spread her pinions, dove-like, o'er the blood-sprinkled ground 

And from farm and from mill for many a mile. 

With heart-cheering cadence, came Industry's sound. 

Ah ! but for a while ! Britain hungered anew ; 

Natalia, now thriving, lay temptingly near ; 
So she burst the frail barrier Principle drew — 

" For South Africa's peace, " proclaimed Napier 2 

Said Prinsloo, then chief of the African State, 
" The might of Great Britain will surely prevail, 

But the wrong she'd iniiict we'll not tolerate, 

And we'll battle for Right till our resources fail ! 

11. 



y^S' 




V 




y 









r — { 







oil ! would there were niaTiy sucli excellent men 

Of principles lofty ; of courage as high ; 
As KoEFED who cast from Bornholm its burden, 

As D' Ei.BEE who dared for La Vendee to die, 

As Maevell submitting to Poverty's gripe 
When defection invited a shower of gold ; 

As this large-hearted Boer and those of his type — 
Incorruptible ! staunch ! and — rare to behold 1 

All hail to such minds ! whence our slow-gaining world 
Draws the little of Liberty leavening its gloom ; 

They shall live ; though their harboring caskets be liurlcd, 
Amid wrath or contempt, to Obscurity's tomb. 

The Boers under Prinsloo, though cannonless, met 
The British where flows the Congella's scant lidj 

And they strove for their homes with a valor that set 
The red-coats at naught and dashed them aside ! 

But the English incited the Kaffirs to arm, 

And the warriors rushed eagerly forth to the fray ; 

The shriek and the flaine-burst rose high from the farm. 
And — the Boers succumbed ! such horrors to stay. 



Again they relinquish the soil they liave tilled ; 

Ao^ain their rich farms to the raider they leave ; 
And lo ! the trek-wagons, wth movables filled, 

A rough-jolting way through the Drakensbei'g weave 

To the north of the Vaal, whei-e tour new States had birth 
Whom Britain was graciously pleased to assure 




'i<\ 1^ 



F 



x^' 




tcD 



," H' 



A, 



Might make tlioiv own laws and till their own soil, 

And she no jiore new lands would seize or secure ! 



Ci>' 



\ 



yjK 



M'ith the passage of Time, how tliis promise endured ! 

The Free State was annexed — then in iive years resigned 
To its rightful possessors, because, ( we're assure.l ), 

Of its COST to protect and its trouble to mind 

All along; like the strong, sucker-branched, Devil Tree, 
That twisting and trailing searched Manoa's ground — 

Whose blood-nourished tentacles let little break free 
AX'hen once the dread coils enveloped it 'round — 

Was England o'er seeking, subduing and seizing 
The lands and the peoples of Africa's clime ; 

Protesting, while these of their all she was easing. 
Against Boer conquest — that, she brande<l as crime. 

Then gems were found lurking in Orange State soil, 
Their lustre the Landgrasper could not resist — 

So the diamonds of Kiniberley formed a rich spoil 
For those no remonstrance could cause ti> desist. 

Though Great Britain had vowed she would not extend 

Her sway over more of the Southern land. 
Yet in 'Seventy-seven that failed to defend 

The " Transvaal " from seizure ; dark, sly, underhand ! 

It was " deeply in debt " and " menaced by foes, " 
Aroused by a railroad laid t'wards Delagoa ; 

And Sekkocoeni's and Cetewayo's 

Great armies conduced its courage to lower. 




13. 



y i 






Hi 




Vi 




Tlit'ii Slu']>stoiio — as "friciiil " ami "advisfi'" — a])poai-0(l ; 

And reinaiiu'd as >isiir])er, ignoi'ing each riglit 
Of tlie State lie annexed as soon as there neared 

Its fortressless borders some forces of might ! 

Oppression an<l Wrong for three years wrought their harm 
Till a Boer was maltreated within Polchefstroom, 

When far o'er the land pealed the tocsin's alarm ; 
Forebodant of British sovereignty's doom. 

For the people arose and strove witli a will 

And l)attles were fought which added the namus 

Of liRoxKiiUEST, Laixg's Nek and Ma.iuba Ilii.i. 
To the fair helds of Glory that Liberty claims. 

For the arrogant British were forced to retreat 
When Freedom unfurled her banner of Right ; 

And — instead of poor tribesmen foredoomed to defeat — 
They met whites of a nation as Aaliant in light ! 

Ilnvocattvc. 
Oh! Men of Ma.iuba ! 

Remember of yore, 
How the Briton's proud flag 

From our mountain you tore • 

Where Ssiit won in the day 

More than Wayne gained at night. 

In a struggle that dwarfed 
That " Stony Point " hight; 

What the sires accomplished, 
The sons may repeat ; 

14. 



^ 



> 



^ 



8 



a 




/ 



m 



m 



X^'. 



s^ 



rr 



^ 




tC0 



;^i^% 



:ga^ 



The soldiers of Freedom 
Need fear no defeat ! 

Form ! herdsmen and farmers ! 

With rilie in hand, 
And rally round Joubekt 

A resolute band ! 

IHarrative. 
So Gladstone conceded the rights of the Boers, 

Reserving alone, to Great Britain, tlie oi^tiou 
The privilege of fathering treaties ensures : 

To prevent their conclusion or speed their adoption. 

Thus far all seemed well. But who could expect 
A nation like Britain to hohl to her word. 

When the course of events should severely affect 
The results to her progi-ess its keeping incurred V 

In tlie 'Vaal were discovered rich veinings of (iOLD ; 

A loadstone as potent to lure and destroy, 
As the Lead Horseman's spell o'er his Black :M(>unt,iin li 

Ere the arrows of Agib o'erthrew the deco)-, 

A medley of miners swarmed into the State — 
Adventurers seeking their fortunes to fcmnd — 

Confusion intruded where Peace reigned of late. 

For the most cared f<ir naught but the (jold in the 

Yet 't was claimed for these men ; who cultured no soil 
Who rendered no service the State might expect — 

Tliey sliould liurgliers become ; be less taxed for tlicir t 
And bow the true Boers to tlie clioice they ck-ct ! 






p^^ 




A creaturi' tlie Rotlichilils liad trained in their tlirall, 

From the Cape to Suez liad projected a way, 
Had surveyed for his road a course througli the 'Vaal, 

And designed that tlie Boers should acknowledge tlie sway 

Xot of England so much, as his own Company's. 

This man, ( Cecil Rhodes), instigated a raid ; 
In the hey-day of peace, under most specious pleas, 

By the tools he procured it was bunglingly made. 

The Lnrghers were watchful, and at Doornkop a net 
Enmeshed all these brigands and balked their design. 

Encircled most skillfully, those whom Cron.ie beset 
After weak and brief battling were forced to resign. 

Success makes the hero — and Cecil had failed ! 
• The home rulers, at once, all countenance withdrew ; 
Protesting that " England " had not then assailed 
The Republic her soldiers had strove to undo ! 

The piisoners then taken were quickly set free ; 

Acd — though red-handed traitors caught armed, in the act — 
Were but banished or lined, through the Boer's clemency, 

When they might have been hanged — as a matter of fact. 

When they would have been hanged, had the case been reversed 
And they had been Boers caught Colony raiding ; 

For England has ever, wth rigor accursed, 

Made "example" of "rebels" her dom.ains in\ading 

In Great Britain, to power, a parvenu rose ; 

Awak'ning surprise by his wondrous expansion ; 
Like the low-l)orn Rafflesia, Sumatran wood groA\s, 

In whose Inige flower Foulness takes up her mansion ; 



j#^ 



5>. M 




\ 












IW'^ 














'® 



m 



^ 



^: 






Kepelling wdtli loathing, the curious seekiilg 

Tlie vicinage of its rank, inutile, bloom ; 
Thus presenting, in truth, a likeness most speaking 

Of this self -engrossed, ill-savored, human mushroom ! 

This schemer for station, ( Joe Chamberlain named ), 

Souglit the dark, narrow, jjaths wherein diplomats crawl : 

Destroyed the good work for which Gladstone was famed, 
And trailed — Helix-like — a foul slime oven- all. 

I^ike the wayfarer, housed by the Satyr of old, 

(As 'tis pithily told in Esopian lore ), 
Who with the same breath blew iirst hot and then cold ; 

He contradicted, at times, what he'd uttered before. 

He countenanced the schemes Rhodes' roguery liatchcd. 
And Milner of Cape Town's sly intrigue contrived ; 

Till 'twere hard to discover three such rascals so matched, 
And their schemes of iniquity broadened and thri\'ed ! 

The calm had subvened that tempests oft follow — 
The franchise, late craved for, the Boers concede. 

During ])arleys for peace on England's part hollow — 
Ah ! now no concessions could satisfy Greed ! 

Nor mere arbitration receive the approval 

Of Chamberlain's faction, whose ambitious crew 

Are barlessly bent on remorfeless removal 

Of those whom they deem a suppkessibi.k few. 

Soon troops were despatched and took u]> their station 

In Natal quite close to the boundary line ; 
In positions that menaced each gallant Boer nation ; 

Thus firing the train tliat was laid to the mine ! 



J 



c' \ 





r<>. 







,.n:-^\ 



To KiiUiiKR and Steix of the Transvaal and Free State, 
Ilarsli alternatives offered : subjection or — war ! 

For years they'd foreshadowed this ultimate fate, 
And j)rei)ared to resist it, most timely hefore. 

Then cried out these brave ones ; " Then let it be war !" 
They hurl down the gauntlet with resolute hand. 

At once into Natal their armies they pour ; 
To visit the strife on their enemy's land ! 

All honor to Kru<;er ! All honor to Stein ! 

Un<hiunted by numbers — when many would yield — 
May their ardor for Liberty never decline, 

Aui\ their lianners in battle, float o'er the won field ! 

"ilnvocative. 
l>ra\ e Transvaal defenders ! 

Whose forefathers left 
The farm-lands of Natal 

That robbers had reft ! 

A third time behold theiu ; 

(The conscienceless thieves ! ) 
All sateless, they come, 

With the plea that deceives. 

Four horrors confront yv, 

Proclaimed in a breath — 
The desert •,»subjection ; 

Or battle ; or death ! 

Strive then for Liberty ; 

Strike for your home ! 
Until your last foeman 

Your arms overcome ! 






tJ 



?^ 









18. 





■x^ 



fX 









€B 



i::!:0C 



Daticination. 
Tlie liurricane gathers ! It darkens the sky ! 

Say ! whose are the forms tliat before it shall rty ? 
Thine ! Thine ! oh false England ! the maltreated Boer, 

Ajitseiis-like risen, hath ceased to endure ! 

Thou hast cast the bared sword in the fair-weighted scale 
And — like Brennus the Gaul's — thy endeavors shall fail. 

Oh ! dread be the reck'ning ; complete, thy disgrace, 
When thy armies meet foemen incensed by menace. 

Thy treasure, oh Britain ! shall slip froTn thy hand ; 

As Falkenstein's Count's ran changed into sand — 
Thy chiefs be disheartened — thy people distraught — 

And thy realm to the verge of insolvency brought. 

Thy land shall be rent by ijolitical strife ; 

Dark robings of sorrow garb mother and wife. 
For the lost that leave bleaching on mountain and veldt 

White fraginents of bone where their life stream erst welled 

And Chamberlain's raiders shall long rue the day 
That their cohorts abetted a demagogue's sway ; 

When he and his creatures of ambitious lust 

Are, with Britain's false pride, down-hurled in the dust. 

For when England reflects on the warfare of shame 
She hath waged with a people quite guiltless of blame 

Self-reproaches will follow and Justice arraign 
The evil Arch Plotter, her curse and her bane — 
Chamberlain ! 



19. 








IKlotes. 



Page 1. Caption. 



iveil from the Olil French 



ir.Tocsi.N. 

■tiKjuier," ( til touch iir strike), anil "aseiiit, " (a 
bell. ) Wkbstkk's Dictionary, IXiB. " An alarm bell or the ringing of it for purposes of alarm." 
NUTTALL, " Standard Dictionary. " The use of the Tocsin during the French Revolution to as- 
semble the multitudes, has rendered the word almost proverbial. Zkl:., "Pop, Encyclopedia," 
n-. 23W. Today, when the liberties of the entire world— such as they are— are jeopardized by 
one of the most causeless and flagrant invasions of human rights ever beheld ; never was there 
greater occasion to sound in significant tones a wide-spread warning to all the people of the so- 
called civilized nations of the earth, arraying them as an united whole in the repression of injus- 
tice, perfidy and wrong. To that end ha\e I entitled this poem •■ The Tocsin, " desitribed in 
its stanzas, with truthful exactness, the unmerited sufferings of the persecuted Bokr Rei'II!- 
Lics under the execrable policy pursued towards them, xor by the misinformed Exi:lish Pkii- 
I'LEbutbythe Government of the latter, directed by Joseph Chamberlain andthelike ; and 
now send it forth to summon ; as with the voii- e of the veritable liell ; every freeman of every 
clime to the aid of the opjiressed, and the discomfiture of the de.signs of heartless and gnispin"- 
tyranny. 

Pg. 1. Line 11. 

'' Your B-\ttle hvmn"si>;gix(:. " 
The simple but stirring verses of the Transvaal " Volkslied, " of which the Hrst lines have 
been thus rendered into our tongue ; 

" Right nobly gave, voortrekkers bra\e. 

Their blood, their lives, their all ; 
For Freedom's right, in Death's despite, 

They fought at duty's call. 
Ho ! burghers, high our banner wa"\'es, 

The standard of the Free ! 
Ko foreign yoke our land en.slaves ; 

Here reigneth Liberty ! 
'T is Heaven's command that we shoulil stand 
And aye defend the volk and land. " 
And eloquently does past history testify how gallantly the lioers ha\e obeyed tlie higli behest. 

Pg. 1. Line 18. 

" The kameel-dorx tree. " 
This tree, ( Acacia giraffa;), so called because the giraffe ; known to the Dutch by the name of 
" kameel ; " browses on its tender foliage, is a ^ ery conspicuous feature of South African scen- 
ery. Requiring, as it does, but very little water it abounds on sandy plains ; greatly relieving a 
surface which , but for its rapid growth, fair statue and plenteous leafage, would present a com- 
paratively barren aspect. Thick, strong, brown thorns render it formidable. 



11 



^ 



3? 






20. 



% 



*^iM 






m 



5: 




Pg. 1. Line 20. 

" KAROSSEI) Kaffii!. " 

The kaross Is a peculiar cloak forming the principal Kaffir garment. It is prepared from the 
ekins of jackals, leopards, meerkats, oxen, &<;. those of the black-backed jackal being, perhaps, 
most highly prized, and those made from ox-hide the kind commonly met with. Great skill is 
shown by the native tailor ; ( nearly every Kaffir, once upon a time, being his own artificier ), in 
the fabrication of these cloaks ; the stiff ox-hide becoming pliable as silk in his deft and prac- 
tised hands. It is sewed with a large poniard-like needle, the thread used being strong sinew. 

The inner side is often curried with dark:Ochre or charcoal, ; says the " Universal Traveller" 
pg. 470 : but Wood, ( " Man in Africa " ), and Barkow, " Travels into the Int. of S. Africa " ), 
do notcontirm this statement ; rLEJiiNG,^ "Southern Afr}ca,."a«5(;,.pg. 141, )' mentions such a 
practice as in vogue amongst the Korannas. 

Since the advent of the Caucasian, the far less graceful blanket has superceded the kaross a. 
mong many of the tribes contiguous to the settlements. 

J. Pg. 2. Line I. 

"The FIR.ST OP all civilized lands. " 
Such is the iilaim of Englishmen, who, nevertheless produce and permit a Cihamberlain to com- 
mit acts against whichihumanity protests and by which justice is outraged, religion made more 
of a mot-kery than is usual and true civilization effectually thwarted and iiuleflnitely postponed. 

Pg. 2. Line 3. 

"At A 'I'EACE-LOVISG' QUEE-N'S MOST ' CHRISTIAX' C0.M5IAND.S-" 

Victoria has the prerogatory power of declaring war or procl aiming peaepj When it is remem- 
bered that not a single week of peace, within the limits of her dominions, has been recorded in 
history since her accession to the throne, the reflective reader may belert to doubt the sinceri- 
of the British sovereign's oft-reiterated protestations of good will to the world ! 

Pg, 2. Line 5. 

" Bedecked with the trappings of barharic pride. " 
ilany British regiments have been sent to meet their South African.opponents. dad in more 
than even the glaring finery worn by some of our militia on parade :! Strange! that England so 
progressive along certain other lines, should be so slow to learn the lesson successively taught 
by Braddock, Burgoyne, Ross and Smith. It is safe to predict, that unless the Northumberland 
Fusilier iiuickly doffs his white-barred jacket of red, the Gordon, or Argyll, Highlander his kilt 
of yellow and green, and the Lancer his conspicuous "helmet" and tawdry, glittering lacings ; 
the only land the English soldier will permanently acquire from the Boers of South Africa will 
prove to be of similar extent and character to that allotted by the Saxon Harold to the Norwe- 
gian Hardrada. 

rredilection for gaudy colors, shining tinsel, pomp and show is a relic of barbarism and as un- 
mistakeable a token of a deficient education among us at the present day, as the red paint and 
i\(>ry armlets of the wild Musguese, the massive and glittering rings of copper of the Balonda, 
or the rainbow-hued costumes and furnishings of China and misnamed Muang Thdi. 




"® 




^-'/^ 



>1- 



rx 



•'© 





Pg. 2. Line 24. 

"Than his who <-(>vr:TF.D tiik rAUTiiiAX Statk." 
Crassus, reputed one of the wealthie%t ami most avaricious of the patricians of ancient Rome ; 
who li\ eil from 108 B. C. to 54 B. C. Actuated by greed and ambition, he personally conducteil 
an expedition into Parthia— only to meet with deserveil and terrible defeat from its alert and 
wily people. Taken prisoner in the pitiless closing of the death-trap set for him by the treach- 
erous Surena, general of the Parthians, and at once put to death, his head and hand were sent 
to king Orodes, arriving during the nuptual feast of one of that monarch's daughters evoking a 
display of the spirit of savagery latent in man in all ages ; the same cruel delight which impell- 
ed Munch of Auenstein, centuries later — viewing the bodies of his foemen on the Field of St. 
James— to exclaim: •' The very grass, dyed with the blood of my enemies, seems a pathway of ro- 
ses ! " Their joy was heigthened by the sight, and. says Rolli.n, ( " Ancient Hist. " Bk. xx, Art. 
2. ), "It was reported that orders were gi\en to pour molten gold into the mouth of the head, to 
reproach the insatiable thirst Crassus always had for that metal. " Plitarch, ( " Life of M. A. 
Crassus," Tonson's edit. 1727, v. pg. 117.1, only tells us that a farce was performed with the 
bead for its subject, by the triumphant nobles of Hyrodes the king. 

The career of Crassus might serve to typify the present, and perhaps foreshadow the future, 
course of England and its probable outciime. High in station, rich beyond a dream, holding the 
rod of vast empire ; yet covetous of fresh himors, greater treasure, and more extended domin- 
icm ; he dissipated his wealth and destroyed himself, in vainly endeavoring to effect the useless 
subjugation of a brave and hardy people guiltless of olTense, but possessed of tempting territory 
and acMTcditcd with affluence ! 

Pg- 2. Line 25 . 

"Teie rich 'Waterskaxd." 

The Witwatersrand, the great gold field of South Africa,— and one of the causes of the shame- 
ful persecution to which the inhabitants of the Transvaal, ( within whose boundaries they are lo- 
cated ), have been subjected by Great Britain ; lies between the Jlagaliesberg range, ( X. ), and 
the Vaal River, ( S. ), and extends from Klerksdorp, ( W. ), to Heidelberg, i, E. ) 

The " Rand " is unique in consisting of auriferous, pebbly, cimglomerates of sedimentary ori- 
gin ; found in the primeval gneiss and granite rocks. A titaniferous band of red quartz and 
magnetic o.xide of iron, is a remarkable frequent accompanyment and, therefore, indicator of 
the precious metal, which is present in no large crystals ; never as water-worn nuggets ; but in 
an invisible state in veins associated with pyrite and silica. L. de Lau>'AY, ( Eng. & Mng. Jour- 
nal, 1897, Ixiii, pgs 631, 659. ) The seams of ore vary from three inches up to even four feet in 
thickness, writes W. Y. Campbell. ( ibid. Ixiv, pg. 30. ), who gi\es much interesting data. 

The first five stamps were operated in 1887, at the close of 189o, about 1800 were working, and 
up to 1897 as many as 4831 had been built. Amalgamation, chlorination, cyaniding and leaching 
of slimes are employed to extract the gold, most of the labor being performed by Kaffirs, Hot- 
tentots and other " black boys " who receive small wages and are poorly fed and lotlged. 

When it is known that the gold mined in 1897 was valued at §46,169,545, and in ten months of 
1SU8, $59,288,193 ; the desire of the British to seize these mines will be rea<lily understood ! 



,> — ^ 



0^ 



n 



k 



% 



^m 



^../ 



OY 










A, 



\_ 



W; 






c^'' 




-c:) 



Pg. 3, Line 1. 

" KUT ISV CAUSES AS POTENT, THK HAiKEIJ OF KAfE ; " etO. 

Ancient grievances were cherished between the British and Flemish, before Edward III, al- 
lied himself with ths latter in 1338 against France ; revived again when, in 1345, he sought to 
impose the rule of his son o\er them and failed to accomplish his design. In 1372, says FKOrs- 
SART, ( " Chronicles, " vol. i. ch. cexeix. ), they fought whene\er they met on the seas. 

The English, who, in the reign of strong-willed Elfcabeth, assisted the Dutch in the resistance 
theyinade to the encroachments of Spanish power ; leaving, however, owing to the I'udenessof 
the soldiery to the women and the inc<msiderate brusqueness of their commanders, any but 
endearing memories on their departure ; afterwards grew gradually jealous of their commercial 
supremacy over them on the seas ; nor did the Hollanders regard a dangerous rival niore fa\or- 
ably. Suddenly, in 1619, the " massacre of Amboyna " occurred ; Capt Towerson and nine more 
Englishmen falling victims to the enmity of their Dutch neighbors, who had taken the island 
froni the Portuguese in 1607, monopolized the lucrative clove trade of those parts, and natural- 
ly regarded the British, who thought they ought to have a share in the trade, as interlopers. 

Torture was employed to extort a coufession from these unfortunates, of a rather imjirobable 
jilot to seize the castle ; a circumstance further incensing the populace when the news reacdi- 
etl England — although that horrible practice was not abolished in the latter country until 170!) 
and the dreadful " peine forte et ilure " was actually resorted to in 1740. 

Drvden, in the epilogue of his tragedy, '• Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to 'the En- 
glish Merchants, " { Works, edit, of 1735, vol. iii. pg. 450 ), written in 1073 ; strikingly portrays 
the feeling prH\alent toward the Hollanders, and the en\y excited by their Asiatic possessions : 

" So would our Poet lead you on this Day : 

Shewing your tortur'ti Fathers in his Play. 
To one well-born th' Aflront is worse, and more. 

When he' sabus'd and baffled bva Boor : 
With an ill firace the Dutch theirJliscbiefs do. 

They've both Ill-nature and Ill-manners too. 
Well may they, boast themselves an ancient Nation, 

For thev were bred ere Manners were in Fashion : 
And tlicir new Commcm-wealth has set 'em free. 




Onlv froi 



I Ho 



i»ur i 



111 Civilitv. 



" As Cato did his Africk Fruits display. 

So we before your Eyes their Indies lay. " 

The Dutch Government promptly apologized for an outrage they probably had no hand in and 
could not, in that case, have prevented ; but the English could neither forget nor forgive. 

Little respe(^t was shown to the Commonwealth by the Dutch ; so the Cromwell men aimed a 
disastrous blow at Holland's commerce by the passage of the Navigation Act, forbidding impor- 
tation save by ships of Britain or of the countries producing the goods. 

Matters under such conditions grew worse, and when, ( May 1652,) the famous Van Tromrj sailed 
into the Channel and declined to lower his topsails in deference to the English colors of Blake 
there was a furious engagement, terminated by the withdrawal of the Dutch. 

War followed, Blake was defeated at first, Van Tronip ■' swept the chops of the Channel " en- 
raging all England by fastening a broom to the masthead of his flag ship. But tickle Fortune 
shifted, the Dutidi suffered greatly in three naval battles ; in the last of which the bra\e Van 
Tromp was killed. Peac;e was made. 

23. 






rCh 



pa 



'^ 



v"^i 





^ 



In H'ti'A tlie I>uke of York seized some (Jiiinea settlements of the Dutch, the latter \a\ iieiliiite- 
ly captured some English merchantmen ; war wa^ ileclared and then ensued a series of " battles 
of the giants " on the seas ; strewing them with splintered wrecks and pouringinto their shut- 
surged waves the wasted blood of thousands of gallant men ; both sides fighting with the dog- 
ged obstinacy characterizing the two races, sometimes, { as oil Lowestoft, iri(!5, and The Downs, 
l(}t)(j), for days, and finally sheering olT so crippled as to be unable to secure the fruits of victory. 

And this strife *' for no provocati<m, " to use the words of Evelyn, " but that the Dutch ex 
ceeded us in commerce and Industrie and in all things but envy. " 

In lf:*;r» the English fleet f<irced an entrance into the neutral port <>f liergen, only tci exijeri- 
ence a niost disgra<!eful defeat ; then in leifJC their opponents were terribly beaten in the Chan- 
nel ; next year, however, seeing the Medway blocked by De Ruyter, shipping in a vast conflag- 
ration in that river and the Thames, Sheerness fortifications destroyed, and vast mischief done. 

Another hollow treaty of peace resulted ; treacherously broken by the attempt of Holmes, ili- 
rected by Charles II. ( then posing as a mediator between the French and Dutch ), to seize the 
rich Smyrna fleet, — an inglorious failure. The drawn battle of Solebay a terrific all-day fight, 
tn((k place that year, (1672), then in three engagements, De Ruyter worsted the allied Frenc-h 
and English navies and compelled a hasty (cessation of hostilities. 

In 177s Hidland was one of the first of the nations to extend a friendly hand to the struggling 
patriots of the new-born United States— an act of magnanimity temporarily costing her all her 
colonial i>ossessions and never properly appreciated by the people she supported at sui^h a crit- 
ical period. During the French war, in IriOG, these restored territories were again taken by fireat 
Britain. An expedition involving the loss of much money and many lives to England, termina- 
ting ineffectivel.^ In 1HU7, and the forced sale of the Cape by Holland for ( 
our condensed narrative of the embroilments of the two cohmial and ( 
conclusion. 

Pg. 3. Line 13. 

" Five scuhie and fivk yeaiis ago, thk Dutch at Cape Town. " 
Xo ptTuianent settlement at the Cape was effected by the fleet sent there by Hidland in 1H20 ; 
nor by the English who endeavored to defeat the object of their voyage by taking possession of 
the countrj in the name of James the First, a little prior to their arrival. This never received 
official rec^ognition. A few British convicts had been placed on Robben Island in the bay in 
1614 ; but were soon killed or driven away. Though neglect to lastingly occupy a country does 
not ne<:essarily nullify the claims of a Power to sovereignty over it. as ruled by Mc Mahon dur- 
ing the Delagoa Bay arbitration proceedings in 1872, when England was seeking to dispossess 
Portugal <m the strength of certain deeds to which Capt. Owens, ( while ostensibly surveying in 
the region, by Portuguese permission ! ), had induced natives to alfix their marks ; omission of 
legal claim justified Van Riebeck when, under the auspices of the Dutch India Company, im 
April (5. 1652, he founded the first mainland colony. In eight years thereafter, about 3 miles of 
laud had been acquired— in a decade more, all the peninsula. And all bv treaty ! "The pur- 
chase appears to have been (juite as complete as that concluded between William Penn and the 
N<)rth Americans. " Moodie. In 17SG the Quaiqua-, ( the aborigines \ had retired before 
the settlers as far as the Great Fish River, a chinge effected with very little of theshockinj^ 
elty disgracing the colonization of New England by the English. 

■24:. 



nly $6,000,000 ; brings 
tmmercial rivals to a 






^ 



y 






^ 






jgr* 




f-^A.. 




m 



u. 



'm 









cr 



Pg. 3. Line 21. 

"They FOKiMr.i) a liEPi'iiLic. " 

I have taken all possible care to ascertain the truth or falsity of this oft-contested statement, 
with the result that it is satisfactorily veritied. The Cape Dutch, long chafing under the ungen- 
ial rule of their government, rose in rebellion during 1794 ; defeated the troops : beleaguered the 
Governor in the castle, and proclaimed a republic. But an English fleet entered the harbor 
on June 10th. 1795, and, empowered only by the authority of the Prince of Orange, ( at that time 
deposed by Fichegru and in impotent exile ), landed soldiers under lire on Sept 16th., seizing the 
Country without even the prevalence of war to justify their disreputable procedure ! 

Though possession was taken in the name of Orange, yet two years after the Peace of Amiens 
we find the peoide released from their allegiance to — his Britannic majesty ! 

Pg. 3. Line 17. 

'■ ASPAKK FROM THE BEACON THAT LIGHTED IP FRANCE," etc. 

The great French Re\'olution ; the outbreak of the long-suffering and despised proletariat a- 
gainst the insupportable despotism of the aristocracy and ecclesiastics; cyclonic in the brevity 
and destructivenessof its endurance : appalling in consideration of the deplorable sacrifice of 
liuman life attending its ineluctible progress ; but inconceivably benificent in its far-rea(!hing 
iipliftment of the masses and vindication of the rights of max. 

A similar re\olution will inevitably take place in this country, when the so-called " common 
)>eople" rendered more intelligent (by the seed sown broadcast over the land by Carnegie and 
such as he, in thie form of public libraries to the ruin of their posterity ; germinating and matur- 
ing), awaken to the realisation of the fact, now so little heeded : that the concern of one is the 
(■ont^ern of am., and act in energetic and unselfish I'NIOn. 



Pg. 4. Lines 5 and 6. 



"As IT FARED WITH 1 HE VOITH'S, WHOSE AILMENTS* * * CATHAV'S LEARNED I'RINOESS. " 

The amiable yoilth, Medoro ; wounded while conveying the body of his dead patron from 

the battle-field, and succored at the point of death by the lovely Angelica of Cathay. ( China ). 

" Soon as Angelica with sad survey 

Jieheld the youth, who pale and wounded lay, * * * 

Then to her mind she call'd whate'er before, 
In India taught, she knew of healing lore, ** * 

> ' Once in a lovely mead with searching view ; 

A plant she niet whose virtues well she knew : * * * 

This o'er his breast she sheds with sov'reign art. 

And bathes with gentle touch the wounded part : 
The wound such virtue from the juice derives 

At once the blood is staunch'd, the youth revives. " 

, ' Ari(>sto. ( " Orlando Furioso. " Hoole's tr. 179!), bk. .\ix, pg. .'iiaj et seq. ) 

Pg. 4. Line 8. 

••With Okiloan QUICKNESS. " 
rilo, ( Kose— Huggins ), was the giant robber with whom many a champion 



•</ K 



Orllo, ( Hoole 



r 







1^ 



]^% 




fought in vain ; a magic hair aini*l hia flowing looks gifting iiini with neoroinantn- powor to heal 
his wonndsand reunite ea<* severflil part. 

" With backward stroke he euts hiin now in twain. 
And with his members piecemeal strews the plain. 
As oft Orilo bids the part unite^ 
Anil W(tndrou(i stands with new recovered might. " 

.^itiosTo. I loc. cit. hk.xv, pg. IHs). 

Pg. 4, Line 9. 

"Oh mi 1 With a hk;h and .^higohihs hand." 
JIany surgeons resort tfi the knife when far less drastic measures would succeed as well, — in 
numerous cases, better. The same may be said of Governments as reganis their treatment of 
the vanquished ; they lack as yet sufficient knowletlge to enable them to exhibit that forbear- 
ance, that kindness, that healing tact amid an unwavering firmness, which soothes the inflamed 
and cankering wounds of the newly conquered, and would ultimately cure by virtue of the i.ovE 
and powKR exhaled by them, tempered by .nsricK. 

Heavily closed the hand of England on the Cape Boers during those thirty wearing, hopeless, 
years between 1806 and 1»3(1 ! Nearly all the olden rights and customs were swept away with 
inconsiilerate abruptness and injudicious rigor. What Russia is attempting in Poland ; what 
(Jermany is striving to accomplish in Alsace-Lorraine ; tddav— England enileavored to do, 
THEX. The homes of the settlers were subjected to a hateful system of incessant espionage : 
over-zealous and meddling missionaries entertained and reported to the Cape, or the Home (lov- 
ernment the merest rumors of cruelty to the native slaves ; so that, in 1811—12, there were not 
five families resident on or near the frontier, but had seen one or more of their members arres- 
ted and imprisoned on charges that could not be proved in the courts ! Life and property 
were equally unsafe from the sudden inroads made by Kaffir hordes, whom the •' humanitarian " 
authorities protected, during which dwellings were attacked, men massacred, women outraged 
agonizingly tortured or driven naked into the wilderness, and what were erstwhile peaceful, 
happy, and thriving homes, reduced to silence, desolation and ashes. New lands were grant- 
eil to the savages and harsher laws enforced for the defense (!) of these proteges of a misguid- 
ed Ministry ! 

Severer grew the laws — more irksome the innovations. Titles to farms were unjustly with- 
held for years ; farmers were prevented from marketing their grain at more than 18 d. per bag, 
lest English firms might fail to realise enormous profit; the old Dutch currency was redeeni- 
edat onlv 3Cp. cent, of its face value in 1S2.'5; the (rourtsof heemraden and landrost were abolish- 
ed in 1827 ; the use of the English language was made compulsory in the courts and public offi- 
ces ■ the long-established system of land tenure was swept away in 1813 ; and, to cap the climax, 
anabrupt emancipation of the slaves,— without suitable provision for them or adequate recom- 
pense to their whilom masters, — cast thousands of the former forth upon the land, too often on- 
lv to rob and murder, and ruined hundreds of the latter. The effect of all thiscuraulative prov- 
ocation upon men, descendants of those who had defied the tyrannical attempts of Philip II, 
and Louis XIV. or heroically resisted the French Hugenot persecutions subsequent to St. Bar- 
'tholomew's saturnalia of blooil ; may he faintly imagined. The wonder lies; in reflecting upon 






^ 



-y. 






V 









■H 



WE 




Y~^ 



fe 












^ 



their ultimate exodus from tlieir rightful territories— in the fact that they bore so long and pa- 
tiently what would have caused many an outbreak if it had been perpetrated in England. 

See Theal, ( " Hist, of the Boers, "); Clauke, ( " The Transvaal " 1849 ); Cloete, ( " The 
Story of the Great Boer Trek, " ); Bryce, ( " The Story of South Africa"); Pietek Smit, 
(" Petition to Sir Galbraith L. Cole, " Feb. 21st 1829 ) ; and numerous documents and records 
preserved in the Colony Arohives. 

Pg. 4. Line 17. 

" Ix eighteen-sixteen, a kebelliox was quelled. " 

Yes ! quelled like those In Ireland and India— by the exhibition of needless barbirity— by the 
exercise of relentless severity ; as admitted by all the English writers chronicling the shocking 
occurrence forever blackening the name of Governor Charles Somerset. 

When the Boer Bezuideshout, died fighting alone against a detachment of troops ; sent to 
arrest him for beating a native in 1815 ; his neighbors rose in arms to defend what they believed 
to be right. But they were defeated, pursued into Kafflrland, whither, ( determined not to 

submit to the old despotism ), they had fled for refuge ; overtaken and hopelessly entrapped 
in a gloomy defile, made prisoners, and six leaders— five, martyrs, if ever martyrs were— speed- 
ily sentenced to death, taken to the military post on the farm of Van Aadt, ( or Aardt ), where 
they had formerly sworn the oath of rebellion, and there surrounded by 300 soldiers having se\- 
eral field-pieces, all, but one, hanged. Four of the ropes parted, the spectators cried out 

for a pardon— alas ! mercy there was none ; new ropes were adjusted, and the tragedy consum- 
mated ; th€ wives and children of the victims, and some of their comrades thirty-two in num- 
ber, being forced to behold the revolting proceedings by command of the hard-hearted Somer- 
set ; who afterwards banished or imprisoned many of them. 

Tha sufferers met their fate with unfaltering heroism ; a hymn rising in solemn strains from 
their dying lips;— their names: Stephanus and Abraham Botraa, Hendrik Prinsloo, Tliennis 
De Kleck, and Corneles Taber ; should be treasured in memory by all true lovers of freedom, 
and publicly honored like those of the gallant Swiss who died at Nafels, April 9th. 1388. 

Thebeamandpiecesof the ropes with which these men were murdered, are still preserved 
by their venerating countrymen, as memorials of SLACHTER'S NEK. ( Butcher's Ridge ). 
" May none those marks efface ; for they appeal 
From tyranny to God ! " 

Pg. 4, Line 22. 

•Like the oiftek Giroxde, " 

It was the last day of October 1T93; and four tumbrils, laden with the most virturous and en- 
lightened members of the French Convention, had rattled their deathward way through the de- 
lerious multitudes, swarming and roaring in ferocious exultation, in the narrow Parisian streets ; 
and deposited their doomed occupants at the foot of the terrible, reeking, guillotine. 

These were the Girondists ; intelligent, humane, deprecating massacre, inspired with lofty 
planning for their dear Republic's future ; they had dared to oppose such men as Danton, Rob- 
espierre, and Marat ; they had attempted to balk the mad designs of an unreasoning mob, intox- 

27. 









Y^ 



^ 



Inated by too copious drauprhts from the cup of Liberty after a fearfully enforced iibstinence of 
centuries dating from the time of the Jacquerie;— they had attempted to direct the path of an 
avalanche more fatal than that of the Cardinell ; and they were whelmed by it to a death that 
was immortality. 

Firm and distinct, amid an appalling clamor, rose the vt»ices of these twenty one calm, brave, 
enthusiasts ; singing in unison a paraphrase of the fiery verses of the glorious " Marseillaise ; " 
( that hjinn which was yet to lead the sons of Gallia on to victory over the combined and veter- 
an armies of all imperial Exirope ), but fainter and fainter fell the detiant notes upon unpitying 
ears, as, one by one, the singers passed beneath the descending knife of the swift but awful en- 
gine, till they sank into silence forever, Sillery, with his white and flowing hair ; Sillery, who 
composed in prison the prophetic dirge, concluding thus: 

'• But should the murderer's arm prevail ; 
Should tyranny our lives assail ; 
Unmoved, triumphant, scorning death. 

We'll bless thee with our latest breath. 
The hour, the glorious hour, will come 
That consecrates the patriot's tomb. '* 

Sillery, the noble and the good, bowing calmly to the people, was the first to die; rupiil was the 
work of Sanson— in thirty two minutes after, the upright, thoughtful Brissot ; the lofty Gen- 
sonne ; the piims La Source ; the talented Ducos ; and the eloquent Verniaud — Verniaud 
whose Chrysostom tongue drew tears from his terrible judges of the preceding night ere it was 
rudely silenced — with the rest, had passed into the fathomless obscurity that shrouds the secrets 
of the grave. France, in a supreme frenzy, had annihilated all that was virturous and just 
at the helm of her ship of state ; at the minatory mandates of imperious Destiny she had dash- 
ed aside, at least temporarily, tools tracing lines of delicate and a-sthetic gravure, for coarser 
instruments cutting with a depth and roughness that elaborated eflfe<!ts as ultimately grand as, 
primarily, they were appalling. Aristocracy was to be hiimbled and crushed with resistless 

rigor, approaching extermination ; a blighting and blimiing clergy was to he hurled from its 
mind-enslaving supremacy ; and royalty all over Europe shaken on its throne and abated in its 
arrogance, by the Common Fkople, so long abused, so long despised, raising the hideous death's- 
head standard TKKROK over the corses of the resisting and the reluctant, and rushing on to float 
the tri-color above nearly every hostile c^pitol. The (rironclists— merciful — ideali.^tic — centuries 
advanced in thought beyond the age — were incapable of this horrifying sacrifice to Progress, 
so they were swept instantly from power ; as any intellectual moderates would be today, who 
might attempt to direct a revolution of our own misgoverned citizens during the first transports 
and terrors attendant upon their liberation. 




Pg. 5. Line 21. 

■■ KXKRANrHISED THE SLAVE." 

"When KngUiiut tirst ]ierniaiientl.v seized the Cape, her officials are allej^ed to liave fjuaranteeil 
the continiianiie of slavery as an institution sanctioned by law in the new " Colony. " 

Be this as it may, it is certain that both the practice and traffic were connived at, and the lat- 
ter inonopolizeil by, the British. ( See records in the Colonial .Archives, during ISfli; and 1807 ). 

There were nearly 36,000 slaves; whose value, individually, often rose as high as from £400 to 



*-^^JC 



28. 



y^ 








£Cnn ; these were appraised at only £85 apicoe— f3,ni)0,00n in the aggregate. But when the has- 
ty emancipation was begun in 1833, it was found that ( owing to insufficient appropriation hy the 
Parliament ), the Cape would receive but £1,200,000 of the total grant, or about £8!^ ]ier slave ! 

And this inadequate sum was paid in boxes which could be cashed at par value, only in far a- 
way London ! Ruin to hundreds resulted ; some, who had mortgaged their slaves prior to the 
Act being forced to part with their farms ; ( Cloete, Fleming. ) ; others raising money on the 
certificates from deceiving speculators at even 30 p. cent, discount ; (Theal, ) ; andsome nev- 
er receiving any of the bonds ! (KixG, " Jameson's Raid. " 1896.) discontent rose high a- 
mong the impoverished farmers, whose lands were now ever-run with thieving vagrants, and 
lirepared the way for what might have been averted had the process of emancipation been grad- 
ly carried on and the compensation (?) of the masters effected with ordinary attention to the re- 
nts of common business honest\ . 





Pg. 6. Line 6. 

" AN'IJ sought IX THE WILOS A NEW UWELLIXCl-PLACE. " 

Ten thousand brave, all-sacriJicing people, — more evilly treated than the Puritan IMlgrims of 
former days ; infinitely more tolerant and humane than thosp bigoted and itersecuting refugees 
from misrule ; — severed the ties that bound them to a misentitled " idvilization ; " and wended 
their toilsome way, beset with danger, suffering, and death ; to found an ideal commonwealth 
of their own, This was the Great Trek of 1836— it was astonishing— it was grand ! How 

many of my dollar-enslaved countrymen of today could imitate it ; nay, even appreciate its lof- 
ty motives and its almost unjiaralleled self sacrifice ? 

Pg. 6. Lines 13 and 14. 

" ChAKA. " " DiNGAN. " 

fhaka, or Tiihaka, the Caesar, and at the same time the Carrier, of the Kafi^irs ; was one of the 
most remarkable and sanguinary despots that ever ruled a people. Originally only chief of 

the Amazulu ; he elevated that small tribe from a state of insigniticance to a position of unop- 
posable predominance. He formed the warriors into regiments ; taught them the most vital 
elements of martial discipline ; and accustomed them to rush concertedly in compact masses 
upon their foes, which no Kaffir had dreamed of doing, before. Slavery, torture and death at- 
tended his victorious arms. Dreading a successor, any of his JiCares of wives who evinced to- 
kens of approaching maternity, were put to death on trilling pretexts concealing the real ob- 
ject in view ; even this most absolute of monarchs being necessitated to outwardly appear to 
consult the wishes of his people. He did not long survive the murder of his mother, Mnande, 
which he caused, and at and after whose interment there reigned a carnival of slaughter rival- 
ling the atrocities perpetrated by M'tesa of Uganda and the " customs " of Gelele of Dahom- 
ey ; solely intended to divert suspicion from himself . Ten girls were buried aliva in her 
jrrave— five thousand people slain at it whose tears failed — tribes exterminated for being absent ! 

Dingan and Umhlangenie,his brothers, treacherously slew him during a council; the former 
placated the soldiery, usurped the throne, and ruled as bloodily as Chaka until the Boers shat- 
tered his power and he took refuge among the Asmasuree in 1840, who put him to death. 

29. 



1^ 



\ Y 



f 




m 



^ 
m 





Pg. 6. Line 17. 

" Who, in Rktiki's i.kadeksiiii" i-LAciNf; their tiu'st. " 
Pieter Relief was a vine-dresser in Paarl District, Cape Colony ; bxitabandoned this industry 
for the roving life of a frontier trader. Aftermakingand losing a fortune as contractor, he 
was appointed frontier commandant in 1834, but so ably did he repress the Kaffirs and defend 
the colonists against them and the vagrants that Stockenstrom quarreled with him, and the 
high-spirited man sold his property, and cast in his lot with that of the emigrants beyond the 
river Vaal ; who made him their Commandant-General. The melancholy end of this daring, 
conscientious, and well-loved leader will be related in another of these notes. 

Pg. 6. Line 23. 

"The powder and guns of the first Bi>ek bands. " 
Incredible as this act of cruel heartlessness, emanating from the Cape Government, mayap- 
pear ; it is incontrovertibly true. But many merciful English officers evaded strict compli 

ance with orders whose rigid enforcement would have been equivalent to handing over the un- 
fortunate emigrants bound hand and foot, to the savages the authorities pretended to be so de- 
sirous of protecting. These conveyed warning of their purpose to, or were remiss in their 
search of, the Boer pioneers ; so much ammunition, etc. was secreted. Yet the order limited 
their supply so seriously that Jan van Rensburg's little company perished, men, women, chil- 
dren,— all ;— by famine and massacre ! And subsequent parties also suffered horribly. 

Pg. 7. Lines 9 and 10. 

E DEATH-FIRK FLEW, FROM THE SLOPES OF VECHT KOP, " 

• Matzule-Katze, ruled over the Zulus called ilatabeles then dwell- 
A graphic pen-picture is drawn of this chieftain by Cornwallis- 
Harris, ( " Narr. of an Exped, into S. Africa, " 1838. ), who also described one of the camps of 
the emigrant Boers. Suspicious of the white men's intentions, his warriors suddenly swept 
down on their advancing van and butchered first 28, and then 25, of both sexes and all ages. 

Other Boers, warned by survivors, resisted successfully; Moselekatze sent a great army coui- 
posed of the martial flower of Amatabele, to destroy them ; but the desperate fanners, assisted 
by their wives and children, ( for there were only 38 available men t ), formed a strong laager 
on Vecht Kop in the Orange Free State, and defended this camp with such puissant valor that, 
although it was repeatedly set on fire in places and once nearly carried by assault ; the ferocious 
assailants were finally repulsed ; the Boers losing only eight killed and wounded, 

Pg. 7. Line 11. 

** Like the flesh-searing rain. " 
That which dropped on the folorn and naked of the seventh circle, " 
arid sand and thick* * * fell, slowly wafting down, dilated flak«s of fire 
Comedy — Inferno," Cary's tr. canto xi v. lines 13, 14, 25 and 2G. ). 

It was a favorite device, originated by the Kaffir soldiers, to bind blazing brands to the shafts 
of their ' throwing-spears " and literally shower them down, thus converted into incendiary mis- 
siles, upon their enemy's kraal, ( village ), or laager, ( camp ). 



•' And swiftly ti 
The fierce Moselekatze, c 
ng far north of the Vaal. 



whose area wide of 
Dante, ( " Divine 



m 



Y. 



^1 



« 



%. 



''¥ 



y^ 



-CO 



> ;3n 



,<D 




Pg. 7, Line 12. 

" Dauk as Trinidad's lake. " 
Tlie n-reat pitch lake near the village of La Brea, Island of Trinidad ; whose waters, 3 mi'.es 
in circumference, are deeply covered with asphalt arising from bitumenous coal. This sub- 

stance is black with brown, red and grey tints, and nearly boils at the centre of the lake. 

Pg. 8. Line 4. 

" Axn rf)iK scoKE of Biieks with bkave Rf.tief fell. " 
Eetief had received assurances from Dingan, that, as soon as he recovered some cattle taken 
frnmhimbySikonyella, a JIantatee chief, a grant of certain unoccupied lands would be con- 
ferred upon the Boers. Retief accomplished this without bloodshed, and after his return, de- 
spite the warnings of his friends, set out in an evil hour for Dingan's capital ; where he arri\ - 
ed on Feb 2nd. 1839, attended by 70 or 80 Boers and 30 servants, convoying the restored cattle. 

Dingan feasted him, signed an agreement ceding the wished for territory forever, and as he 
was about to depart, invited him to re-enter the isi-baya, ( central enclosure ), of the great mili- 
tary kraal. Unsuspectingly, Rerief and his men piled their muskets outside, in conformance 
with Zulu etiquette ; and went in. But wbile they sat in pleasant converse— parting-cups of 
maize-beer raised to their lips— loud thundere<l the \oice of the terrible Zulu : " Slay the wiz- 
ards ! And there pressed around the doomed ones, 4000 of the willing warriors, whose fatal 
kerries struck down the victims at ttrst like oxen in the shambles. Back to back, armed only 
with clasp-knives, the Boers sent many of the foremost in that crushing circle to their last ac- 
count, ere they, too, followed their gallant commander to the grave. Food for the wolf and 
bird of prey, their bodies were thrown on a small hill outside the kraal, devoted to the remains 
of criminals ; where, ten months later, Pretorius found them, a horrible pile of battered skel- 
etons one of which was identified as that of Retief by means of a leathern pouch containing the 
deed signed by Dingan, still hanging from his neck. 

Pg. 8, Line 11. 

'■Then vmvs on the camp of the helpless ones nigh. " 
The camp of the emigrants extended far down the Blue Krantz and Klip river valleys ; only 
at a few places, here and there, had any defenses in the shape of tree-branches, stones, group- 
ed wagons, etc. been begun, the young men not with Retief had ridden off to hunt, and the aged 
and the women and children, lulled by an amazing sense of security, abided, scattered working 
or resting, their return— an easy prey to the ten Zulu regiments then rushing on from Umkon- 
gloof,— red with the rec^ent slaughter,— to destroy them, 

Pg. 9, Lines 15 to 22. 

' Foil J he wak-a.\es crushed the frail skull of the child." etc. 

The Kafflir— good-humored, kind-hearted, hospitable to the extreme in times of peace— is so 

alTrightingly transformed during warfare as to become a faclnorous demon ; a Moloch unsated 

by prolonged and multiplying agony and slaughter- What horrors those little children and 

helpless women were fi>rced to see and suffer, passes both imagination and description ! 

31. 




hjsF 



Cyf^ 




wc-r7( 



liavished, eventerated, eviscerated, dismembered alive— flayed with assegai blades an<l perfor- 
ated asain and again by them in non-vital places to prolong their exquisite death-torments— 
seared and charred and broiled by fire— all this and more did these victims of the barbarous, in- 
human policy of the Cape authorities exhibit to the pitying eyes of their avenging countrymen 
and Itin as the latter entered those veritable vales of death. They found Marguerita Van 

Voort pinned naked te the ground by assegai-heads thrust deeply into the soU through her 
wide-extended hands and feet ; her nose ears and breasts pared off close to her head or body ; 
and her exenterated abdomen displaying in its blackened cavity the cold remnants of what had 
once been glowing embers ;— they removed the skeleton of an unknown young girl, partially 
denuded of all flesh, from a broken ant-hill ; she had been stripped, pegged down on her back 
upon the nest by spear points in the same cruel manner before mentioned, and left to perish lin- 
geringly, excruciatingly, in worse than fiery torment, by the bites of the enraged insects that at 
once began to crawl over and sting her and gradually burrow into her body ; her first frenzied 
writhings doubtless affording infernal mirth to the gloating torturers ere they sought fresh vic- 
tims for newer forms of procrastinated death ;— and they lifted out little Catherina Prinsloo from 
a dreadful heap of mangled and blood-crusted corpses, living and yet to live, though perfora- 
ted with twenty-one ghastly assegai wounds ! 

It is for no idle purpose that I shock the reader by the recitol of a few instances of such of 
these enormities as decency permits to be named,— but to convey to his mind a feeble impress- 
ion of what a persecuted people were forced to undergo through the unjustifiable harshness 
of the same •' civilized " government that shortly afterwards drove them from these new lands, 
won at the cost of so much sacrifice and suffering, and is now for the third time pursuing them 
with pitiless and contemptible malice accentuated by that basest of motives : gkeed. 

And, furthermore, to awaken his indignation and then direct its flow against the true cause 
of all the misery befalling the Boers : the British Government ; by also direc ting his attention 
to the fact that, as that power unrighteously seized Cape Colony in the beginning— forced many 
of its inhabitants into exile— followed these even beyond the waters of the Orange to deprive 
them of servants, pretended to have been really slaves, and of their arms, their only means of 
defense and subsistence— and stirred up the natives against them,( even as they did the wild In- 
dians in our Revolution )— the British Government and that alon e must be viewed as the princi- 
pal in all these and ensuing horrors and the Kaffirs simply regarded as either inevitable concom- 
itants uponits measures, or else as actual agents, 

Pg. 9, Lines 15 and 19. 

" War-axes" » * » "Assegai. " 

War-axes were used by some of the Kaffirs north of the Drakensberg mountains, pressed into 
IJingan's service— they did not form part of the arms of the true Amazulu. 

The assegai was the principal weapon of most of the tribes ; this was a kind of spear, or light 
ja\elin, composed of a slight-looking, gradually tapering shaft formed from the elastic wood of 
the Curtisia-trce, and a blade-shaped Iron head ; convex on one side of a raised central ridge 
and concave on the other— serving to communicate a rotatory motion to it during its flight. 

Sometimes it was barbed, but not very often ; and occasionally the el.xborately-fashione.l 



1 'V', I 



^^ 



m 






® 



X' 



'% 



H 




^\% 



j5n 



V 



\ 
3^ 



^ ^^^% ^ 




blade was replai'ed by a mere spike. Thongs of raw hide, originally wetted, were used to firm- 
ly bind the head to the shaft. In the act of throwing this weapon, the Kaffir springs rapidly 
from side to side, and imparts to ita peculiar qiiivering motion at the momentof its departure 
accompanied hy a strange menacing hum ; tooth of which it retains during its undulating, ser- 
pent-like, bewildering flight. The stabbing-assagai is shorter and heavier and has a bayonet- 
shaped blade. Lk V.^lliant, Haukow, Fi.kming. 

Pg. 9, Lines 25 and 26 

"The N(ii!theu.\-lani) lemjiinhs " , „ » '■ Nouoe" 
The lemming( Myodes lemmus, or fieorychus novegicus ), a short-tailed, mouse-like, terribly de- 
structive little animal ; swift and absolutely void of fear ; over-runs Lapland and Scandinavia 
at uncertain intervals of time, generally once or twice in twentj' years, migrating either towards 
the Atlantic or the Gulf of Bothnia. Neither fire or water bars its progress and it attacks 
whatever living it may meet. Buffok. Biolakd. Wood. ( " Natural Histories "). 
Norge, ( pronounced nor gay ), is Norwegian for Norway. 

Pg. 13, Line 1. 

"The WAitmiiKS ok Kos.\ and Zuli' and Poxda. " 
Although, for the most part, formed of Amazulu, yet the Kaffir armies contained many war- 
riors of other trib es forcod into service, or else absorbed by the former nation's conquests. 

Pg. 10, Line 6. 

" Pketokius. " 
Andries Pretorius had been a very popular Field-Cornetin Graaf-Reinet district. Cape Colo- 
ny, and had recently joined the emigrants ; who now gave him chief command. 

Pg. 10, Lines 10 and 11. 

" IMIMS OF BlNOAN. " +( * * " HKOAO WAK SHIELOS E-\PAN1>. " 

An impi, or regiment, consisting of from BOO to 1(100 men, was indicated by the black and red 
spots displayed on the broad white surfaces of their tall, strong, shields of hide 
As many as thirty six impis were, at the zenith of .\mazulu power ; kejit reaily for war. 



Pg. 10, Line 16. 



• Dej 



ITU nirUNG FOK EITHER "WHO YIELDED THAT PI.AI>'. " 

Zulu soldiers returning unsuccessful from battle were certain to meet death or decimation 
according to the sanguinary prececlent set by Chaka. And the Boers knew that failure to win 
that strife meant future massacre to themseUes and all dear to them, by the victors. 

Pg. 10, Lines 18 and 21. 

"'Bi.Ei'UANT King.' " * » « " Zi.ngaxs." 
' Elephant King " is an isa-bonga, i praise-name ) ; it is assumed by, or given to, a Kaffir on 
occasion Zmgan, or Zingian, is a name applied to all the tribes occupying the territory lying 






t 


3 J 


!. 


I 


%J^ 






m 




i-^ ' 


m 


3 




\ ^ 


1 







,:^vv 




l>ftwt'Oii the Drukpnslmrg mnuntains ami the soa. 

Uingairs army left from 30110 to 5000 dead and wounded on the field ; many Boers deolarn 
that the battle continued three days. It terminated on Dee. 10, IKts ; the anniversary of 
this victory is celebrated to this day at Paardekraal. 






*-!-:/( 



Pg. U, Lines 22 and 23. 

" Xapiek. ••«»«" Prixsloo. ■• 

George Napier, governor of Cape Colony, wrongfully laid claim to Natalia on the pretext that 
it was originally included in the land acquired by England at the " cession " of the Cape ; and 
also to preserve peace in South Africa, which his own countrymen had repeatedly sprinkled 
with the blood of its natives, whom they affected to protect when the latter did not immediate- 
ly stand in the way of their ambitious projects. Yet, in IMO, this man had left Natal to the 
lioers.writing a fine moral missive to their Landrost which concluded with his " sincerely hop- 
ing" that they might cultivate those beautiful regions they had made their own, in peace and 
tranquillity ! ( See Cloete's " «r. Boer Trek. " ) The brave, rugged, honest Gov. Prinsloo's 
Hrst notification of this villany, was the advent of a well-appointed detachment of troops under 
Major-General Smith ; he remonstrated in vain ; so uttering the memorable words given in the 
poem, he awaited the onslaught of the foe. Attempting to surprise the Boer laager near the 
Congella river, a swift Xatal stream ; Smith was defeated, losing many men, ( mostly drowned 
in their precipitate flight ), anil all his cannon ! He was thereupon closely beseiged in Durban, 
but large reinforcements arrived and British agents caused the Kaffirs, always delighting in war! 
to fall upon the frontier farms: thus relieving Smith, who had been dieting economic-all.v up- 
on horseflesh ; for the Boers hastened to save such of the womenand children there as had not 
already been outraged or murdered. Thus the English forced them to submit ! 

Some began to leave Natal at once ; others, finding the rigor of British rule increase-for ma- 
ny farms were confiscated because not immediately occupied, houses were arbitrarily entered 
and searched, a petitioner sent to the Cape ignored, and a reward of £1000 offered for their for- 
mer leader dead or alive— soon followed them and Smith said that the misery he then beheld, ex- 
ceeded any he had ever seen before. And all this after England had solemly assured Retii:i- 
she would not interfere with the Boers in future, on their quitting Cape Colony ! She began 
to fear the effect of the proximity of a flourishing free reih bi.ic. 

Pg. 12, Lines 3, 4 and 5. 

• KOEKEI). ■• •• D'El.BEE. ■■ ■• MaRVELL. • 

.lens Koefed, a brave, upright and sagacious inhabitant of the mountainous Danish island of 
Bornholm,( in the Baltic), assembled five resolute men and surprised the commander of the 
Swedish forces then subjecting the country, at Roenne-rode, like Paul Revere, from villa--e 
to village rousing the people-captured Hammersluus-was made general-in-chief-and freed 
the island from the yoke of the invaders. 

D'Elbee, a Vendean gentleman then about 40 ; joined the peasant-army in 1793 ; <lefeated the 
republican Berruyer at Chenille-was made commander on the death of Cathelineau-and.shot 
in the breast during the terrible slaughter at Chollet, was left during the passage of the Loire 



^ 



W. 



■:^ 



Nf . 



A.^ 










M^^ 










Taken prisoner, sliurtlx' afterwards, anil lailen with insult while tortured by his 
endured it all calmly for five days, then almost expiring, he exclaimed " Gentlemen, it is time 
to conclude, letme die ! " They placed him in a chair by the shore, and shot him. 

Though a trifle pedantic, he was a very virturous, able, courageous, learned and pious man. 

Andrew Marvell, M. P.— satirist of Charles II— friend of liberty— was born at Winestead, in 
Yorkshire, England, in 1G21 . He stood for the best interests of his country, though his life 

was frequently threatened ; and he unhesitatingly rejected a ijlace at court and also an offer of 
£1000. from I,ord Danby, intended to purchase his silence, although he was in such want as to 
be obliged, immediately afterwards, to send out from his obscure and cheerless lodgings to try 
to borrow a guinea. Well did he deserve to be called " the British Aristides ! " 

It is delightful to be enabled to resurrect the nearly forgotten names of such noble and 
consistent men from the grave of years of oblivion, and mirror forth the deeds that haloed 
them of yore, for shining and emulative example to the beings of today. 

Pg. 13, Line 4. 

■' The Frke State was annexed. " 

Another gross violation of Great Britain's oft re-iterated promises that she would not disturb 
the settlers north of the Colony. The Boers residing near the Orange River, resisted English 
authority after the conquest of Natal, and were defeated at the hard-fought battle of Boom- 
plaats. Many then trekked north, where the Portuguese, kinder than the liritish, had given 

land to the refugees from Natal. A reaction occurred in England, resulting in the recogni- 

tion of these Boers north of the Vaal river, as independent, a convention signed by Commis- 
sioners Owens and Hogg, also declaring that England will not make any extension of territory 
beyond that boundary. (,Ian. 16, 1852). And in another act of justice, on Feb, 4, 1854, when, at 
Zand river, Russell Clerk restored the freedom of the Orange River Boers, lost at Boomplaats, 1849 

Whatever motives of Ministerial compunction or diplomatic or financial expediency, induced 
this sudden restitution, their ascendancy was, unfortunately, of very brief duration. 



- \ 



Pg. 13, Line 7. 

"Like the sthoxg, sucker-branched. Devil Tree." 
The weird and leafless tree, fabled to stand in the great ainjihitheatre of the evil Black Priest- 
hood of the wonderful golden city of Manoa, high-reared on mysterious Eoraima. ( Guiana ). 

" The branches which were many— a hundred or more probably— drooped over from where 
the trunk ended and trailed abont the ground." • • * " Its never ceasingraoveinents suggest- 
ive of everlasting hunting after prev, of an insatiable craving tor its hateful diet of fiesh and 
blood, of sleepless hunger, of tireless rapacity and relentless cruelty— all these made up an un. 
natural creation that appalled the instincts and chilled the very blood of those who looked up- 
on it." F. AUBKEV, ^ "The DevilTree of El Dorado, " 1897, pgs. '224 and 248). 



Pg. 13. Line 17. 

" So THE diamonds of Kimberlev." 
In 1871, in renewed violation of the most positive assurances one nation can give to another, 
a large piece of territory in which dianu>nds had been discovered the year before, was torn 




vX 



^§35 




from the Free State by Great Britain and fornieil into a i nlony entitled ( Jriqua-land West. 

Some years later a trifling sum was paid to the Boers as indemnity for their losses hy this act 
of infamy ; a payment of thousands where millions were involved and which, while it confess- 
ed, only accentuated the wrong done the unoffending Republic. 



^'Pf( 



Pg. 13, Lines 21 and 22, et. seq. 

" That f.^iled to dkfkxd the Trax.sva.\l from seizure " 

The South African Republic, or " Transvaal " had been endeavoring to connect itself with 

Delagoa Bay by rail ; this, and some trouble with the people of Utrecht on the frontier, stirred 

the wrath of Cetewayo, king of the Zulus, and seconded by a powerful chief nameil Sekkocoeni 

lie prepared to make a descent with three large native corps. 

It is true that the Republic was bankrupt, that her citizens were alarmed, and that there was 
a minOTity jiarty favoring annexation amongst them ; but it is, however as certain fact that 
the Boers who, despite continual British and native hostility, had preserved their independence 
for four decades— unaided— could anil would ha\ e successfully defended themselves at this cri- 
sis ; and that there is nothing to justify the treachery and hypocrisy which now disgraced En- 
glish procedure, Theophilus Shepstone was hurried to Pretoria from the Cape, as friendly 
connseller ; there is no doubt, from his extraordinary influence over the Kaffirs, he could have 
rolled back the tide of invasion then, as he easily did subsequently ; but that was not the de- 
sire of the Machiavelians who sent him. He paltered— pretended to find anarchy while he art- 
fully fomented discord— and at the juncture he judged favorable ; the savages on one side, an 
accumulating British force, ready to be employed for or against the Boers , ( as circumstances 
might warrant ), on the other— he indelibly besmirched the honor of his country and betray- 
ed the confidence many Afrikanders had based upon his previous asseverations, by proclaiming 
the Transvaal a crown colony ! In vain the burghers protested ; in vain two deputations jour- 
neyed to England— the former were unheeded, the latter were denied an audience— and the old 
aggravating policy of supercilious misgovernment was inaugurated anew. 

See Theal, i, " History of the Boers " ) ; Nixon, ( ■• story of the Transvaal " ) ; Carter, ( •• A 
Narrative of the Boer war " ) ; and Colenso, ( " Natal letters " ) : I have corresponded with 
Englishmen and Boers familiar with the above-mentioned occurences and have carefully read 
the contemporaneous British "Blue Books," in my search for truth. 

Pg. 14, Line 6. 

"Till a Boer was maltreated within Potchef.stroom. " 
A Boer, named Bezhidenhoi-t, of the Potchefstroom District— < along the .Mooi river, to- 
wards the S. W. of the Transvaal (—refused to pay the Government quit-rent taxes, which the 
usurpers of his country had imposed on the burghers without caring to obtain the sanction of 
the Volksraad. His wagon was seized, ( after he had been roughly handled ), and offered for 
sale in the market-place of the town, when its indignant owner appeared with a few determin- 
ed friends and carried it off. Constables were despatched to enforce the claims of the Re\ en- 
ue Commissioner, but Bezuidenhout had many supporters by that time and they precipitately 

36. 



^ 



;;/ 



II g^ 



c^^ 






^c 



^0( 




m 






■M'"^ 



\ 



m 



% 



1^4 



took to flight. Troops were telegraphed for ; meanwhile the Boers were meeting at Paarcle- 
kraal and electing a government, and proclaiming their independence ; Dec. 8th to 13th. 1880. 

The ensuing war proved disastrous to the British, who were ambushed at Bronkhurst Spruit, 
(Dee. 20th ), repulsed at Laings Nek, ( Jan. 28th ), and at Ingogo, ( Feb. 7th ), and completely de- 
feated by a far inferior force under Nikolas Smit at MA.JUBA HILL, Feb. 27, where less than 
200 Boers stormed the British position, killed Gen. Colley, the commander-in-chief, and nearly 
102 men, and drove those not taken prisoners, in utter confusion from the mountain top. 

Besides this, bodies of English were closely besieged in Potchefstroom, Standerton, Wakker- 
strom, Rustenberg, Lydenberg and Pretoria ; defending themselves with the gallant obstinacy 
so characteristic of the soldier of Britain, but with varying sucicess. 

Directly after their defeat at Majuba, the English made peace with the Boers and re-affirmed 
the Zand River Convention. A truly great man, (Gladstone ), then directed Britain's af- 

fairs ; a Ministerwhose generouscosmopolitanismandardentzeal for his country's most endur- 
ing glory, prevailed o\er the base instincts of racial, factional, and personal ambition— He rec- 
ognized the full extent of the -vvrong that had been done and strove to repair that wrong as far 
as in his power lay. The Pretoria Convention of Aug. 1881 speciiied British suzerainty over 

an otherwise autonomous people, but this unwarrantable and unrighteous clause was omitted 
from the subsequent Convention of London signed iu Feb. 1884; the complete independence of 
the Boer Republic being thus tacitly admitted. 

Pg. 15, Line 17. 

" As THE Lead-Horseman's spell. " 
Tlie bearer of that potent talisman of lead, affixed to his brazen breast, who dominated the fa- 
tal loadstone mountain and, (amongst many others ), drew the ships of Agib, son of king Khes- 
ib, to swift destruction on its rocky and iron-strewn base. Tlie prince let fly three magic ar- 
rows at the rider and lo ! the spell was dissolved and horse and man engulfed In the sea. "The 
Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, " Pavne's tr, Villon Society, vol. i, pg. 123. 

Pg. 15, Line 23. 

"Yet 'twas claimed foe these men; — " etc. 

That the Uitlanders, ( non-citizen foreigners ) of the S. A. Republic, were flrmly and in some 
instances autocratically ruled, is certain. But whatever treatment of this nature they un- 

derwent was amply justified by the peculiar conditions environing the State without, and also 
by the increasing numbers, monarchical tendencies, and menacing attitude of the immense al- 
ien influx within. This foreign population was almost entirely composed of miners • men 
for the most part caring nothing for acquiring citizenship or founding permanent homes in the 
country : but only interested in efforts to extract the greatest possible amount of gold from 
the ground in the least practicable time and cheapest accomplishable manner, and then re-em- 
bark for their native shores carrying their uninvested wealth along with them. 

Of 10,000 whites in the "Rand" in 1806, 8U per. cent, were Exglish. W. Y. CAiMpbell (E 
& Mng. Jour. vol. Ixiv, pg. 96). The actions of these latter unmistakeably evinced the hos- 
tile trend of their sentiments towards the little Republic. They refused to bear arms against 



rx 



37, 



r<^. 




\ 



theKallir triht-s menacing tlie St:iU-, although iirotTered full hurgershiii if they cimplieil— they 
clanioreil that there was no education tnr their children, when the faet was, (and is, as the read- 
er may easily ascertain for himself \ that several good Dutch schools were located in the Trans- 
vaal, Hut they had no wish to make use of these ; for why ?— their posterity would then be- 
come imbued with Boek and Rkhlulican ideas and sympathies ! 

They protested against the deservedly heavy taxes ; the only source from which the country 
could hope to derive any material benefit out of those who were draining it ol its natural treas- 
ures—they, and the great mob of the criminal and dissolute always met with in a large mining 
camp, agitated for liquor-saloons in plenty; which the Boers, a sober people, strongly opposed; 
but, above all, they cried out that the franchise was denied them— as from the force of circum- 
stances it certainly very properly was, until they had been residents for 14 years, liut 14 years 
had not always been exacted by the Republii^ In 1x76, hkfokk the precipitation upon her of a 
foreign element in numbers nearly twice her entire population, one year's abode in the coun- 
try conferred citizenship ; in 1882 the term was increased to 5 years, and only extended to 14 af- 
ter the wild rush to the newly-discovered gold-fields in ison. Even then the Trans\aal did 
notattempt to restrict or prohibit emigration— as the United Stotes has done without being 
warred against by any of tba foreign governments whose subjects were thus excludeil. 

Had the former liberal franchise remained in force, the malcontent British, (and it was from 
Britons most of the clamor arose ), would have outvoted the republicans in their own \'olksraad 
and handed the country over to England. 

Ulterior agency was busily at work among these dissatisfied adventurers to stir them into 
rebellion ; many of the great moneyed combinations of the world— suchas the Rothchilds,Wer- 
ner Beit & Co., and others of the rascally stock-jobbers that disgrace our social conditions and 
reject no methods, however mean or infamous, that appear conducive to the success of their fi- 
nancial schemes ; had insinuated their mercenary and intriguing creatures, of whom Rhodes 
then Cape Premier, was chief, into the affairs of the Republic's til! then orderly mining camp. 

Pg. 16, Line 6. 

"This max, ( Ceoii, Rhodes), i.vstigathi) a raid." 
Cecil Rhodes, founder of Rhodesia, former Premier, director of railroads, man of millions, and 
plotter to create an United South Africa neither under Boer nor British flag ; stands prominent- 
ly revealed by the search-light of inquiry directed upon the immediate causes of this wanton 
attempt to coerce the Afrikanders as one of the prime movers in the iniquitous conspiracy call- 
ed " .Jameson's Raid. " With the design of Jameson the cat's-paw, when, with Rhodes' broth- 
er and a force of Bechuana-land police, &c., under prominent Buitish officers, on Dec. 30tb. 
18.95, he starte<l out on his brigand incursion into Transvaal territory to " redress the wrongs of 
the Uitlanders;" many of the people of Johannesburg instead of anticipating his comiu<>-asthat 
of their saviour, evinced little sympathy— some, Englishmen to boot ! regarded his undertaking 
with unconcealed dislike. Many concessions had been made to them by Pres. Kruger, and 

by patient endeavor they knew much more might be achieved. 

The reform Commitee. however, armed and began fortifying. But all their hopes were ut- 
terly destroyed by the disaster that befel the incautious Jameson, who— lirst repulsed in a skir- 



38. 



/^% 









miso at Krugersdorp— washemmeil in on all sides, at DoouxKor, by the vigilant lioers comman- 
ded by the wily and able Gen. Piet Cronje, and compelled to surrender, after a loss of 58 killed 
and wounded. ( Jan. 1st, 1890 ). Then they were forced to throw themselves upon the mercy 
of the i)eople whom they had unjustifiably outraged. With the Draconian British Government 
to deal with, death would have been their punishment ! Admirably had the Republic just 
demonstrated its stability— no less praiseworthily did it now display a most extraordinary mag- 
nanimity. The offenders were only banished or fined, and England, ( who had hastened after 
their overthrow to disavow any part in their plot ), was expected to bring them to trial ; which 
she never, subsequently, made e\en a pretence of doing ! 

See Ki.NO, ( '• Jameson's Raid, " 18.%. ) ; You.vghushanii, ( " S. Africa of Today, " 1K97. ) ; 
liiGELow, ( '• White Man's Africa, "1898.) ; also Govt. " lilue Hooks " of the period., I have, 
besides, resorted to trustworthy correspondence, with both parties, before forming any opinions. 




Pg. 16, Line 27. 

' LiKK TllK LOW-HOK-N- RAFFLKSIA. 



I those who ho 



■rably 



I have not alluded to Chamberlain's humble origin to cast any slur i 
rise from lowly beginnings— but simply to add force to the simile. 

The bizarre Rafflesia Arncddi, discovered by Joseph Arnold near Pulo Lebban, Sumatra, in 18- 
18, is a parasitic rhizanth, or stemless and leafless root-flower, inhabiting the hot moist jungle. 

"He " ( a native ) " pointed to a flower growing close to the ground, under the bushes, which 
was trillv astonishing— " * * * " it measured afull yard across, the petals bemg twelve inches 
high—" * * * •• the neetarium, in the opinion of us all, would hold two pints, and the weight of 
this prodigy we calculated to be fifteen pounds 



that flies are 



AllNOLU 

It grows in the old wood of a species of Cissus, and emits so loathsome 
often attracted to it to deposit their eggs. 

Pg. 17, Line 5. 

"This schk-mku for station, (Jok CiiA.MHEUi.ArN xa.meo ). " 
Of Joseph Chamberlain, one is irresistibly impelled to cry out In the words of CowLEr : 
" Curst be the Man ( what do I wish '? as though 

The wretch already were not so 
Hut curst on let him be ) who thinks it brave 
And great, his Countrey to enslave. 
Who seeks to overpoise alone 
The Balance of a Nation * * * 
Who of his Nation loves to be the first 

Though at the rate of being worst. 
Who would be rather a great Monster, than 
A Well, proportion'd Man. " 
(" Discourse on the Govt, of O. Cromwell," Works, 8th ed. 1G93, pg. 59). 
Chamberlain, the son of awood-screw maker, was born in London in 1836 ; drifted iuto politics, 
abandoning his trade to more diligently pursue them, in 1874 ; was repeatedly elected mayor of 
Birmingham— 1873,-1,-5, and was sent to Parliament in 187C, to which he has been returned e 
since. Gladstone appointed him President of the Board of Trade, and he posed as an ultra- 

radical until 1880, when he disagreed with the Grand Old Man who, prophesying that he would 
some day bring great trouble upon the country ; had held him in check with a strong hand. 
In 1883 he married one of those rich women of the Cnited States always content to sacriljoa 

39< 




y^ 







v"*^iy 



^ 



^®^fe^^^ '^ 




n«i»ubliran principles and privilej^es for the shining {^aiuis of social — aristocratic. — distinction. 
He is now Colonial Secretary, and a rabid inii>erialist — :i determined persecutor of the Boers ; 
whom he has, as occasion reiiuired, alternately lauded and decried. This wotul lack of consis- 
tency and of regard for the truth, together with his uncontrolable ambition, constitute his evil 
features. In many other respects he is an extraordinary person, as evinced by his rapid 
aciiuirement and firm retention of no inconsiderable power. And having dwelt upon hi s 

glaring demerits, it would be manifestly unjust to omit mention of some of his commendable 
(jualities ; which are patent to all when it is said that he is a good husband, a faithful friend, 
a brilliant orator, and a politician practically incorruptible. 

As to his great aspirations : the Premiership of Great Britain and the annexation of all of 
South Africa to the Empire, this war will probably wreck his schemes relating to the latter and 
though he may attain to the former, it will not remain with him long, for, even if the reaction 
sure to take place in the popular mind, during or after the strife, does not displace him, some 
other shrewder, shiftier, or merely luckier jjolitician assuredly will. Hisfate may be read in 
the fourth book of Cowper's " Task : " 

" The seals of office glitter in his eyes, 

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them ; at his heels. 
Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends 

And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down. 
And wins them but to lose them in his turn. " 
Englishmen, admirers of Chamberlain, may denounce what I have stated derogatory to him ■ 
nay imagine it pro-15oer libel. Let these read his speeches and study his acts with careful 

attention, and with the regard to equal justice on both sides that is notable among the English 
people's traits of character ; — I ask no more. 

Pg. 17, Line 9, 

"LiKK THE WAVFAKER HOUSED BV THE SaTVR OF OLD." 

The Satyr in Esop's, ^ or ..Esop's ), Fables, who drew the chilled Traveller into his cavern fnmi 
the wind and snow ; and, horrified when his guest first blew on his hands to warm them and af- 
terwards on the hot wine prepared for him to cool it ; indignantly expelled him. The ap 
jdication warns us that, unless the tenor of a man's life be always true and consistent with it- 
self, the less one has to do with him the better. ( Fable Ixxiv. Croxall's ed. jigs. 153 and l.'H). 

Pg. 17, Line 19. 

"UlltlNi; I'AKl.EVS FOK PEACE." 

The High C<mimi8sioner, Alfred Milner at a conference held in .lune, l»9'.i, decLired that En- 
gland would be satisfied if the S. A. Republic granted a five years franchise to the I'itlanders ; 
he had, however no right,— according to the terms of the London Convention, to propose this, 
or intefere at all. On Aug. lath, the Republic conceded what had thus been illegally reiiuir- 

ed of it anil desired that arbitrators be appointed as soon as the franchise became operati ve. 

Chamberlain rejected both the concession and request ! For nearly a year troops hatl o<'- 

cupied positions along the Transvaal borderland to overawe its people ; now Chamberlain be- 
gan to mass them there, and on Sept. 19th, Milner telegrapheil to Pres. Stein, ( or Steyn ), of 
the Orange Free State, that a portion, or all, of a detachment from the Cape, would be posted 

40. 





J^^ 





%. 



wcg 



\ 



\ ^ 



on that country's frontier " to keep open communications ! " Pres. Stein replied that his 

burghers would regard such action as a menace, and on Oct. Ist, sent soldiers to his own side 
of the border. The S. A. Republic had previously done likewise ; and, on Oct. 9th, deman- 

ded the withdrawal of England's rapidly increasing armament, which now had become so for- 
midable as to no longer leave Chamberlain's intentions in the slightest doubt, and again asked 
for Arbitration— to which no answer was returned ! War had begun when the armies of 

England encamped near the two Republics ; it was formally declared on thellth of the present 
month, by the Transvaal President. Mark Chamberlain's subsequent utterance of the 19th ; 
" The Transvaal and Free State have an ideal which is dangerous to Great Britain. " ! ! 

Pg. 18, Line 20, 

"The plea that deceives." 
The plea of promoting the civilization of the world ! England has not determinedly bent 
her energies towards its real advancement in lands under her rule or " protection ;" as, for 
examples, in suppression of the slave markets of Zanzibar and Pengu,-prevention of famines 
in India and Ireland,— abolishment of the notorious traffic in girls, prevalent in Afghaniston,— 
the purification of her own revolting Whitechapel slums,-etc. But she is forceful and lav- 
ish enough of expenditure, when her self-styled advancement ot progress presents a prospect 
of COLONIAL EXPANSION. Chamberlain's first plea for interference was "Uitlander rights ;" 
now his excuse is that •• Great Britain must be paramount in bouth Africa ! " 

Pg. 19, Line 6. 

"And,— LIKE Bbennus the Gaul's.— " 
Brennus, about 300 B. C. had led his 70,000 furious Senones frem the icy regions of the Bal- 
tic to the sunny plains of glowing Italy, and hurled them upon Rome ; whose defenders, rout- 
ed on the banks of the AUia, had sought hasty refuge within the Capitol. The Gaulish king 
swept city and suburbs with sword and fire, and besieged the Romans for six months, when— 
starvation lowering the spirits of both contestants— peace was proposed. The Romans agreed 
to pay a thousand weight of gold , the metal was procured and was being weighed, when the 
Gauls kicked and overturned the oeam. Brennus replied to the remonstrances ot tne men 

of Rome by casting his sword and belt into the scale, ana declared the action signified • Woe 
to the conquered. " Much enraged, the Romans began disputing, when suddenly, Camlllus 
whom they had lately exiled, appeared, leading a numerous army, removed the treasure, and 
admonished the discomfited barbarian. " that it was the custom ot the Romans to ransom their 
country not with gold, but with iron. " Subsequently the armies engaged, and the Gauls 

were nearly annihilated. See Plutarch. (" Lives Camillus,' Tonson's 1727 ed. vol. ii, pg.99 ), 
also Arnold, ( • History of Rome " ), It is also affirmed he threw in the sword to augment 

the ransom, which PoLYBiu.s, ( " Pragmateia,( Hist, of Rome, ) ' Bekker, 1844 ] ; rejecting the 
advent ot Camillus, says he effected a safe departure with. 

Pg. 19, Line 10. 

"As Falken.stein's Count's ban changed into sand. "' 
A legend of the Castle of Falkenstein, Germany. \ Leg. of the Hartz Mts ; The Cave ot the 

41, 






:\ 

93 



€B^' 




Golden Treasure. " iii, 1872 . Tidian, shepherd of the Count of Falkensteiu, loved Elsbeth 

Brusch, whose father, a well-to-do farmer, insolently refused to permit him to marry her, until 
■' he could show a pocket full of gold ; " of which-the young man being very poor and honest, 
there appearad to be, in those times, very little likelihood. But one evening a beautiful flow- 
er, " glowing with a clear, cold, brightness " that encircled it with lovely hues of blue, orange 
and rose ; met his eyes, and he was about to gather it for Elsbeth, when a sweet little voice is- 
sued from it, crying " Oh ! pray do not hurt me, my good friend ! " He forbore ; a tiny Elf 
disengaged himself from the beauteous flower, and grateful for the kindness Tidian had shown 
him, gave him a floral guide to a cavern filled with light and music and-heaped with golden 
treasures ! He was bidden to help himself, but never disclose the source from which this a- 
bundance flowed, else misfortunes would surely fall heavily upon him. 

He married Elsbeth, bought his freedom, and prospered for awhile ; but the Count became 
suspicious of his former serf and having received a bracelet of gold from him on his espousal 
of a young lady, and learning of large sales of precious metal made by the imprudent young 
man . he had Tidian conveyed to his castle and confronted with a dungeon and torture. 

Tidian revealed the secret, upon which they shared the treasure for awhile, but the avaricious 
nobleman resolved to possess the whole, stabbed Tidian. deprived him of speech and sight, and 
hurled him on some rocks, to eventually breathe his last in the arms of Elf-guided Elsbeth 

Falkenstein proceeded to the cave-it was dark and still ; he had filled a sack, when it light- 
ened in his grasp, and- forth flowed yellow sand, while a voice cried : 

■■ Begone, thou cruel murderer, -Withdraw thy blood-stained hand, 
in vain thou seekest treasure. Thou shalt only grasp the sand ! " 

Furious, he snatched at bars of gold, they crumbled to worthless grains at his touch ;-he hur- 
ried to his castle, the riches in its treasury changed in his hands to sand ; which flowed, as he 
fled shrieking, from room to room-hemmed him in-rose around him-rolledover him-stifled 
his breathing with its yellow tide ;-and the poor shepherd was avenged ! 



Pg. 19, Line 21. 



"FOR WHEX England reflects on the -b-arfare of shame." 

This war gives ample promise of being prolonged and bitter ; already the Boers.-brave, sted- 

fast men whose courage has been shamefully underated.-have given most significant proofs of 

their true mettle at the battles of Talana Hill (Oct. 20), Elandslaagie, (21st\ Dundee, (■22nd ), 

and Rietfontein, ( 24th ). 

I have much confidence in the outcome of;the final decision of the English People concern- 
ing this conflict ; they are, in the main, reasonable and just, and-though at present inveigled 
into apparent sanction of their Government's inexcusable policy by cunning politicians and 
chinatmg financiers— A reaction b-ill sl-relv, sooner ok later, ensue. 
Anu .t this little work conduces, even in the smallest degree, towards that virturous reaction 
by tending to enlighten them and the world as to the full extent of the enormities perpetrated 
ui'on a Irecdoniloving people ; its author will not regret the labor expended on it. 




Y 



m 



C5€ 



ys9 







^Or^d 





iCl T A MEETING OP FeIENDS IN ONE OF THE COUN- 
TRY TOWNS OF England, the case of a man 
WHO had suffered a severe loss of worldly pos- 
sessions THROUGH no fault OF HIS OWN, WAS PRE- 
SENTED FOR RELIEF. MaNY ELOyUENT EXPRES- 
SIONS OF SYMPATHY ENDING WITH •' I FEEL FOli HIM," 
HAD BEEN MADE. At LAST AN OLD FrIEND ROSE, 
AND said: " I feel £ 10 FOE HIM, how MUCH DOST 
THEE FEEL? " A NEW "fEELIN(;'' PERVADED THE 
MEETING AND RESTORED THE BANKRUPT TO COMFORl 



application. 

This WAS sound, practical, common sense. And as the old 

Quaker sympathized with him Fortune had despoiled, so should we 
with the Boers from whom Britain is, a third time, taking their all. 

Let money be raised, let volunteers join them ; let the voice 
OF the freedom-loving people of this country and England and 
THE m'orld, signify to their Governments that a brave, unoffend- 
ing people must be protected and preserved from the attacks of law- 
less Monarchy ; and, above all ; 



Let English goods be boycotted to the fullest extent ! 



/ ^.i^f^A. 



?.^SS 



078 



393 



